


The World After

by LSpires



Series: The World After [1]
Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Apocalypse, F/M, Walkers, Zombie, Zombies
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-10-27
Updated: 2015-02-05
Packaged: 2018-02-22 21:16:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 75,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2522087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LSpires/pseuds/LSpires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alex and Eve never would have talked in the world before. But this isn't the world Before, this is The End and they are forced to rely on each other as the world they know falls apart, and they are pushed to survive.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 01: The End

**Author's Note:**

> AUTHOR'S NOTE: The events in this story are heavily inspired by The Walking Dead. I have not taken characters from the original story, or used the same Infection Spread/Plot Points. The walkers however are similar. This story is also rated a hard M, even if it doesn't start out graphic it will get to that point.

Chapter 01: The End

 

 

The back of my head burned where the roots pulled at my scalp, the hand entangled in it dirty and blood-stained. The other pair of hands like vices wrapped around my wrists. A second person, a woman, leered forward her knife tipsily tracing the outline of my jaws.

Her eyes were light, but glinting with darkness. Behind her the colony of trees swayed in the breeze. “Not a mark on her,” she said, her tongue teasing between her teeth. The brothers behind her wore battle wounds across their features like badges of pride, scarred arms bracing Alex between them as he struggled. “He's been taking good care of her,” said the woman, undeterred.

I knew what was coming. I prepared myself as best as I could – shaking my body, screaming obscenities as I did what I could to hurl my weight against the concrete force at my back.

“Don't you fucking touch her!” Alex yelled. He shook his head to the side, avoiding the slip of the gag and barreling into one of the men while the other grabbed at the bind of his writsts. The shorter man lurched to the side with the abrasive impact of Alex's shoulders. The other sucker-punched Alex along the back of his head, sending him hard to the ground. The brother's converged like hyenas, kicking their hunting boots into his abdomen, blackening the skin on his chest and face. His name was on my lips, my voice toneless with hysteria. It died in the middle, transfigured by pain as the knife cut into my face.

 

********************************

“What, are you stupid?” were the first words Alex had ever said to me, hissed like a threat between his lips. His hand had wrapped around the nose of my gun, sharply pivoting it downward and away from the singleton walking dead, wandering dumbly across the track. I thought he was insane when he walked directly towards it, lifting the dagger as he went. He had crashed it into the rotting man's skull with a meaty shlicking sound, the body falling like warm compost against the Earth. He turned to examine me, and my stupidity, a loud hunting rifle I had never fired. And I was, stupid, that is.

I didn't know then. I didn't know much of anything.

Alex had dark eyes, when he was angry, which was always. In the rare opportunity he wasn't then they were green and vibrant. He was tall and muscular, and perpetually glowering. How he had snuck up on me was a mystery to me, but not to him. I was alive by some mishap of chance.

 

I'd been lucky. As lucky as you could be when the world went to shit. I'd had a group take me in. I hadn't had to hunt, I was easily slopped in with the other skinny housewives and their children. We'd had a farm, off the beaten path with chickens and pigs. It stood awhile, considering the state of things. Four weeks after the Rising, the farm was overrun. I'd hid in a cabinet, listening to the screams of the living and the terrible slurping sounds of the dead. I was there for two days before the last of them cleared, and shaking and weak I faced the wreckage.

I'd run into the woods with my rifle. Three days later, Alex met me.

********************

''What were you going to do after you fired the gun?” I could barely make sense of the words Alex said. The past week had been the longest of my life. I had gone from surrounded by a small team of people to completely and wildly alone. The rustle of wild-life in the bush wasn't just a loping squirrel, it was a starving corpse. I'd spent my time hiding, stunned by how awful the world was outside the farm, anxious about the proximity of a violent death.

To see another person was both wonderful and terrifying.

Alex was looking for an answer.

“I don't know,” is what I said. I didn't know. I hadn't thought past the terrible fall my stomach had taken, the clumsy shock of coming upon a decaying face. The empty eyes had seen me and driven forward, rotting hands reaching forward to rip me to shreds. You died slowly too, I had heard it. The gun had been my first response, lifting the nozzle with shaking hands to throw a bullet at the first real threat I saw.

“How are you alive?” Alex had said it like it had been my fault. Like he was angry to come across my path at all. I hadn't had an answer for that either, but rather than say as much I'd said nothing. I had grown up around angry people. If you gave them nothing they still found something to be mad about.

 

I don't think we said anymore than that. We never communicated that we were banding together then, but I followed him from that forest and he never said a word about it. I didn't learn his name until we were hidden in the hunting cabin, ducked away from the windows. There I learned he was Alex, and he learned I was Eve.

He had moved a couch to block the door and I lamely did my best to help.

After that, we didn't talk.

I wondered if it was safe to be there, safe to be anywhere really. Alex hadn't gone near me, though. He stayed at his side of the cabin, occasionally shooting suspicious looks in my direction. I don't think either of us slept that first night. I do know we said nothing more than our names. He avoided saying mine completely for awhile.

 

 

I wasn't a survivalist before the end of the world. But I knew people, I always knew people and I knew what Alex was doing. It didn't take the avoidance of my name, or the heaping of insults for me to understand that he was putting up a wall between us. It was in the way he carried himself, a no-nonsense gait. It was his tone itself, lashing and angry when all he was snapping was an important observation, a landmark to keep in sight. His hurt was all over him, and I wondered what he had seen. I didn't ask though, I didn't ask him anything. It wasn't because I was quiet or ever kept my mouth shut. I was simply stunned. I imagine there were a lot like me, in the beginning but you can get used to most things.

I never got used to Them.

But I did get used to the feeling. The feeling of being stuck in the middle of a play with no lines, the feeling of being on a sinking ship with not an island in sight. As I got used to it I seemed to come back in, and in that I got used to Alex.

 

Alex must have called me stupid a thousand times the first week. There were a million different ways to say it.

“Blind corner,” he'd snap when we entered a building, grabbing my shoulder to pivot me towards a space I had overlooked. “And, you're dead,” he'd say whenever he returned to our hovel of the earth, and I hadn't noticed him until the last possible second.

Sometimes when I would mess up he'd be so angry he couldn't find the words. I'd fumble with the can opener and he'd start opening his mouth and shut it, wondering why he was wasting his time as he stole it away from me to do himself. He'd rip sticks out of my hand when I failed to mimic the precise motion of his hands after three times of watching.

My anger was building, like boiling water slowly coming to a roll. I tried to be rational, I tried to get it.

I understood he was angry. I also saw that he was teaching me, in his own strange way. But there was only so much shock to cushion the irritation.

************************

I had been traveling with Alex for fourteen days when the car alarm went off, a coincidence of bad timing and some unfortunate rustle. We had been scouting a residential neighborhood for food, with our packs nearly empty and out heads aching from hunger.

 

Alex broke the lock off the back door of the house, raising his gun in case out entry garnered attention. His rifle had a silencer on it, a packed segment of steel wool and grease. When nothing came running, he switched the gun for the dagger. Behind him I kept my own gun angled for any sign of attack.

The house we entered had a laundry room at the immediate right. I had reached to shut the door as we passed it, as Alex had told me a hundred times before. When I pulled on the knob the ironing board at the back of the door had dropped loose, falling to the floor with a thunderous clatter.

Alex shifted for a fraction of a second before the crash at the backdoor, a flailing woman-like limb breaking the carefully curtained glass of the small window with a shatter. There was an issuance of moaning on the steps, the approach of deteriorating feet as they moved for the front windows, a tremendous chorus of battering fists on the shivering glass. “Come on!” Alex's feet squeaked on the linoleum, a large black imprint of a boot in someone's decimating kitchen.

I followed him to the first door he approached, awkwardly splayed in the middle of the kitchen. His foot went through the rotted landing as I jerked the door closed behind us, shutting out the light. “If you slam another fucking thing I'm going to slam your head through the wall,” he growled. I could feel his glare in the dark. I felt for my flashlight, belatedly finding the front of it in my pocket and twisting it to angle at Alex's foot, swallowed by the rotting wood. He jerked upwards and it stuck fast, an emission of pain like a burst of steam from his mouth.

I cupped his leg above the interruption of the floor and the bleeding juncture, his hands steadied on the railing. I pulled up and he jerked backwards, leaving behind a red splinters and a muffled cry of pain.

The glass shattered in the living room, raining onto the floor as hurtling bodies disturbed the segments that remained. In the movies glass falls all at once. In actuality it was one piercing shriek after the other.

I turned to flip the little lock on the basement door, Alex limping down the stairs following the bobbing beam of his light. I looked at the door a moment, seeing it for what it was. Weak oak with a switch-tab lock, keeping at bay a legion of undead.

It was with terrible panic I moved down the wooden stairs, avoiding the crater in the top step left by Alex's foot.

 

 

The basement was mostly storage, an unfinished concrete hole in the ground. There was a window, blurred with dust and bleary post-rain. Alex collapsed against the back wall, clutching his gun and pointing it at the angle of the stairs. He was glaring openly at me, in the thin light of the monochromatic window.

“I did what you told me,” I said, finally.

“Did I tell you to get us killed?”

“I shut the door,” I issued, my voice hinging on irritation.

“You slammed the door!”

“Something fell!” I snapped back.

“You're useless.”

“You're mean,” I responded hotly.

“At least I know I'm mean.” His voice crawled. “You don't seem to know you're useless.”

“I don't care what you think of me,” I told him, turning my back on him to move across the large expansive basement. I kicked up dust as I moved, clouding my sinuses but refusing to sneeze. Alex didn't dare call after me and alert attention. It was his injured leg that kept him from physically turning me back to finish the fight. He was in an awful mood and never would have left things alone like that if he was feeling well.

It was with this information I began popping open boxes, scowling. I eventually found something similar to what I was looking for, returning with a small yellowing First Aid Kit. When I opened it there was nothing but twine inside and rubbing alcohol, no bandages. A single Mickey Mouse band-aid had been stuck to the plastic container itself. I got back up, settling on the least dusty sheet I could find. It had been draped over a colony of old chairs, carefully guarding a cracking television set.

Above us, I could hear feet mulling about the living room. There was a crash as something fell, a lumbering cry cutting through the cracks in the basement door to echo around the room. I pretended not to hear it as I doused Alex's wound with the alcohol, numb to his grieved inhale as I ripped the sheet, swabbing then wrapping the wound.

“Tighter,” he told me. “Tighter!” he snapped when I still hadn't done it like he would. I pulled tighter, glaring at him as I finished wrapping the wound.

“If it goes numb, that's on you,” I told him.

“Except, it's your fault that we're down here,” he argued. I imagined he was probably glad to be fighting me, I hadn't been much more than a sounding board in our weeks together. That alone wasn't enough to get me to turn off though, it never had been before this.

“I didn't do anything wrong,” I refuted. There was a crash as something hit the door at the top of the stairs. Alex moved to his feet, the weight on his right ankle turning his face gray. “It can't hear us,” I told him. “There's no way.”

“Shut up.” He was looking towards the door, for the logic of what was happening versus my thoughts on them. There was another muffled bang.

“It's just one of them,” I said again, not keen on moving. I could still hear the car alarm echoing in the distance, cycling in and out. The streets would be crawling and it was still light out.

“Winds flexing the door. Fuck.” He shook his head. “It fucking figures.” The creature banged up against the door with a dreadful moan and larger bang, it was definitely more than one of them now, brought to the door by the vibration of the wind through the house.

He turned to examine the window. There was nothing to push open the glass with. It would have to be unscrewed, or broken.

I moved to grab one of the chairs I had seen hiding beneath the sheet. I banged it against the ground to splinter the wood enough to rip off the leg. Alex took the stake from me without comment, pegging it against the glass until it spiraled. He tapped the spirals until they broke, reaching to push the triangles out of the way.

“Are you going to fit?” I said.

The window wasn't very big. I wasn't sure Alex's shoulders could make it all the way through, especially at his chest. Alex didn't give any validity to my claims, or refute them either, electing to simply ignore me as he limped to the nearest table to pull free the sheet covering it. Underneath the sheet was a variety of fish tank equipment, somehow still dirty and dank. Alex folded the sheet, placing it over the broken strips of glass.

“You're not going to fit,” I realized as I examined the window. I was going to just barely fit.

“Nope,” Alex said flatly. “Go around, see how many there are left in the house and what you can do. If you don't know, come back.”

“I don't know,” I said.

“What don't you know?” There was another loud bang at the top of the stairs. “Don't you want to get your feet a little wet before you get ripped to pieces?”

I glared at him. “Prove me wrong.” He shrugged.

I moved over to the window, saying nothing as Alex knelt to boost me. I stepped onto his fists and pulled myself through the broken window, the damp grass leaving water spots on my knees.

“Here.” Alex pushed his dagger through the window. I had never used it before, and wasn't feeling very confident about it. I bent to accept it from Alex, straightening to examine the yard I stood in.

The sky was still grayish with rain, the sun slinking lower and lower in the sky. I was in a small fenced yard, unable to see much more than the upper windows and rooftops of the neighbor's yard. There was a small bush, and several puddles but nothing that could help us. I didn't say goodbye to Alex as I moved around the side of the house, tracing the blue paneling with my fingers.

The fence ended in a sharp curve. If I were Alex, I could see over it. Instead, I peered through the cracks between the bolt-lock and the wood. The street lay open and exposed, eerily dead. It always struck me, how quiet the world was without cars.

It still wasn't silent though. The street was empty, from where I could see, but I could hear moaning inside the house. I thought about the zombie at the back door. It had sounded like an entire army had entered through the window.

The car alarm was still bursting for air down the block. It could have easily lured the zombies back out again but I knew it hadn't. The sound had become background noise. The living dead were enumerated with the newest loudest bang.

I unlatched the gate, my heart picking up in my chest. My bladder was squeezing tight, as if making itself smaller. I hunched down, hoping to make myself less noticeable.

The front porch was narrow, but tall. I uncurled my spine to peer beneath the rails. I could see where the window had come down, several jagged pieces of glass still clinging to the frame. Inside the house I could see the reanimated corpses, pacing.

Four of them were now banging against the oak door, picking up their lumbering fists just to hurl them forward again with a series of meaty thwacks. It shook hard in its frame with the force of the blows. There was a fifth in the living room, attempting to pull itself along the carpet. For whatever reason, its legs seemed to have betrayed it and it wasn't moving.

I couldn't take on four zombies. I wasn't to waste the ammo in the gun unless they knocked down the door. I thought about what it would be like to just walk away, but I never seriously considered it. Alex was mean and abrasive, but he was also company. It was an awful thing to be alone out here, and awful worse to be left to die alone.

I couldn't kill them. I would have to distract them. I braced myself as a breeze flitted through the trees, forcing the leaves into a shudder. They seemed to whisper above me, congregating as I thought and the basement door shook in its frame.

There was a soft crack. The door would be coming down soon. I licked the dryness from my lips, the cold wind on the wet spot waking me up.

I looked to the street. Several cars had been parked in relative normalcy, just to never be driven again. The streets were a mess to navigate, the keys impossible to match to a car that still had any juice left in it. But I didn't need the car, not the whole thing.

I moved around the wrap around porch, darting into the yard of the adjoining house. I moved along the back, winding around a paisley dog-house with an overturned dog dish and twisted chain. I loped to the next yard, underneath a shattered window and through a patch of dead itchy grass that licked across my heels as I moved. My heart was racing all the while, a caged animal waiting for the doors to open and the necessity to bolt. Four houses down, I stopped. It seemed like enough space from our house to attract the walkers, and close enough that I could get back, hopefully alive.

I held my breath as I approached the car, pulling at the back door. It was locked fast, flexing with a soft click under my sweaty palm. I knew the car alarm would sound if I tried the front door, and prepared myself for the bursting sound as best as I could.

The alarm didn't go off, the passenger door opening under my hand. I let out a shaky breath, extending my hand for the horn. I closed my eyes, for a moment aware of the pulse in my body, the blood hammering in my heart. I leaned on the horn and with an almighty squeal of a boom it let out. I hit it four times in rapid succession, then raced across the lawn back behind the house.

I heard them now, coming from all sides. Their labored gasps and the scratchy sounds of a dragged limb. It was more than ten, definitely. I loped over the fence this time, not daring to dart around. I hadn't been very good at climbing fences before and now was no exception. I fell over into the bordering yard hard, tasting dirt and blood as my limbs tangled beneath me. I got back to my feet, not allowing time to assess the damage. A grayish leg jutted onto the road, a raspy smoker groan following. I shrugged behind the dog house, clutching to the moist wood chips for purchase, the handle of the dagger clutched tightly in my palm. The creature lumbered forward, a conglomeration of barely stuck limbs pasted together with strings of tendons. The arm dragged along the ground, connected by one slowly ripping stretch of muscle. The man lurched past, his arm following like a lazy pet.

I couldn't climb the fence again. I stepped into the road, behind the back of the zombie, moving on the tips of my toes into the front yard of the house I had left Alex in. My breath was a short burst in my nose as I peered over the edge of the porch.

The walkers had gone, the back door was no longer breathing in its frame.

I vaulted myself over onto the deck., moving over the broken glass and to the basement door. As I reached for the knob, a long cold hand wrapped around my ankle with a gnarly groan, yanking me hard to the ground.

I let out an involuntary scream, flicking my leg to kick off the woman. Her hair was short and coming off her head with large sticky sections of skin, her eyes gray and full of cataracts. Her arm yanked, her mouth opening to reveal teeth like serrated stones.

I jerked forward, bringing the dagger down hard on the curt top of her head. The skull collapsed beneath the motion, brain matter and blood marring the side of my hand. The door at the top of the stairs jerked open, hitting me hard in the side.

Alex didn't apologize, simply grabbed me by my upper arm to jerk me to my feet. His eyes skated over my exposed ankles, and then the corpse of a woman laying flat on the ground. He was satisfied, but didn't say as much. There was a lumbering groan and a crash as something hit against the half-open back door, the miniature curtain rod losing purchase as it fell to the kitchen floor. The zombie moved forward into the now open frame, his face a massacre of open wounds. Alex pulled the dagger from my hands and in the same fluid motion arced a hand to penetrate the bulging circumference of the man's forehead. “You shouldn't have screamed,” he told me, and limping led the way through the back door.

I didn't have the energy to argue.

 

 

Our second home was made in the woods, between the seizing tremble of the trees. The residence was no longer safe, and in a slow agitated pace we darted between yards and cars, leaving the growing mass of the suburbs. Our muscles ached, my gums still bleeding as we walked. I didn't complain, not knowing how Alex continued to limp forward when he was obviously in a great deal of pain. We stopped when we were as far away from the residential suburb of Tarrot as we could move, stopping before we were too tired to make camp. All around us were miles of woods, and in between the trunks the wind whistled mercilessly.

The tent was really small, definitely a one-person camper. I helped Alex with the spokes mutely, wondering how either of us could fit in there, especially unable to withstand even the same courtyard without fighting. “I'll take first watch,” I told him and he scoffed.

“Just try not to knock anything over.” He disappeared into the small tent, a giant lumbering shadow in the miniature green canvas.

I propped up my gun and watched the trees. I knew I shouldn't expect to see anything there, we were off the beaten path, and yet still I was anxious. My insecurity about the past two hours hadn't simply rolled off, instead it seemed to have picked up a narrative. I had to recognize Alex's injury, and my own close calls. In a single mis-step everything could have gone to shit, and yet it hadn't. I couldn't mess up again. I didn't think the entire debacle was my fault, but as the person who had caused the big bang I felt myself compensating by being hyper-aware. Every crack in the woods was a potential threat, the whistle of some lofty bird a greeting call to a walker. I waited, tense, my hands around the back-end of my gun.

Alex fell asleep, sleeping far more than he probably wanted to. It was dark and starless by the time he woke up, crawling from the tent to see me rapidly succumbing to exhaustion. “Wake up,” he snapped. “You're going to get us both killed.”

“I am awake!” I garbled back, tired and numb with cold. I'd fought to stay awake, against what my body wanted to do but it didn't seem to matter. Alex ignored me, nudging me hard as he dropped to take my spot. I got the message, stepping and brushing myself of the dirt and his presence, moving into the miniature tent without asking how he was feeling. I was too cold to, and he hadn't asked me anyway.

I moved into the sleeping bag, which was warm and smelled like Alex. It was an oddly pleasant sensation, like petrichor and stone. I was asleep within a matter of seconds. It felt like I had only been out for a minute when Alex was unzipping the tent, demanding my attention in a frantic whisper. “What?” I muttered, drugged with the lacing of sleep.

“Get up!” he seethed again, his voice a sharp frenzy as he shook at my shoulder. “I can hear them coming, a whole hoard from the highway. We got to move now!”

Somewhere between the words and the shaking I kicked into gear, shoving off the sleeping bag to crawl after him. I could already hear them too, a nearby mass of uneven crooning. There was the skating sound of something female and nearby, something's vocals gutturally sounded, just to choke and cough on blood pooling their throat. I reached for the tent but Alex shook his head, snagging my arm. “No time.”

There was no insult. It was serious.

We darted into the woods, the sound of the stumbling and dying converging like a chorus. Alex was still limping, the passage of time making his wound tender and awful to put his weight onto. I couldn't see his face in the bleak darkness of the woods, led only by the crunching of what I hoped were his footfalls. The zombies weren't aware of us, but as we moved we were making noise and arousing attention. I could hear something shift in their dynamic, alerting them to the nearness of our footfalls. One of them gunned, a throaty barking growl. I out-paced Alex, winding around several trees then slowing so he could catch up. “Keep moving,” he snapped, his voice bronchial with the effort to whisper his aggression. I moved up ahead just to double back, moving well ahead of him now.

“Come on, keep up,” I told him. I could feel his eyes on me in the dark. I could also feel their eyes, hear the lurching of their footsteps into the mud, the caterwaul of something already dead. I moved ahead once more, slowing as I waited for Alex. I could hear them nearer now, their footsteps a pace behind our own, the bitter wail of their desperation weaving in the air. There was an object in the dark and I squinted, hesitant to break out my light and beam it on the horizon. “It's a cabin,” I told Alex as he neared me. “Just a little further.”

His hand bracingly grabbed my upper-arm, squeezing too tightly. I held onto my exclamation of pain, moving forward as he forcefully released, stumbling after. I found the porch with a bang of my shin in the dark. When I reached to help Alex he pushed my hand away, pulling himself up onto the sagging deck and nearly crashing through the large doors. I followed him into the cabin, the thick intense smell of tightly packed earth clogging my nose.

It was impossible to see much. I closed the door and Alex moved to the ground, spent. I spun to look for something to block the door with. I felt the wind pick up, breathing into the house. The windows had been shattered. There was no furniture inside the cabin. There was nothing constant, nothing stable. The only reliable thing was the approaching sound of the stumbling hoard.

I hunkered down next to Alex, my belly flat on the rotten floors. Nearby we could hear them, like a rising crashing wave. There was a long “Ohhh,” first then a chipping groan. I swallowed tightly as the first few began to pass, waiting for one to turn. Something stumbled, rebounding off the porch and then began to move past, their cries carrying from the front to the side of the house then disappearing into the wood work. Another banged up against the porch and I held my breath, willing it away.

It was like time stood still, my breaths shallow in my chest. I could hear my heart in my ears, and just underneath that was the sound of Alex's own uneven inhales, his exhales like a burst. I held my hand in a fist, my nails clipping my palm as with another thud a zombie bounced off the porch.

I was considering my death, but it wasn't as simple as that. It was rotting hands, pulling you into two different directions until you split down the middle, spurting like a macabre fountain. Then there would be the teeth. It wasn't a quick death, I knew, I'd heard it before.

There was a creak as one found purchase, pacing the length of the cabin.

Slowly, the hoard converged and then moved on, leaving the straggler in their dust. The last groans faded, leaving the echoing thud of the lone walker on the porch. I didn't dare move from my spot on the floor, my anxiety a knot in my stomach.

Alex breathed in paces besides me, pausing with every thud. His instinctual fear of death was almost a comfort, the fact that he was as unnerved as I was. The last footfalls of the mob disappeared leaving the lone straggler and the two of us behind them.

There was a thud as the lone zombie hit the cabin wall again, the soft issuance of a moan. Alex seemed to breathe again, and with the dislodging of his air I found my own coming back in.

I don't think we slept more than a handful of minutes. The night was dark and daunting, the presence of the mob too near to merit moving from our places on the floor. All night long we listened to the thud of the walker, banging up against the wall like a bubble of noise each time sleep cradled us again.

I woke with a start, each time again, expecting it to be bursting in through the door. It would be just a shadow on a shadow, and that would be all it would take. A dark night and a building feeling of anxiety. That was all it could take to end it all.

When the first lights dawned and we could make out the apish shape of the creature, Alex stood. He pulled the dagger from his sheath with a weary hand and let the door open with a creak. The creature alerted stumbled for him. I only heard the conclusion, the slicing sound of the dagger as it drove into the cranium and the blow the porch took as the zombie hit.

 

*************************************************************

Alex's ankle took three days to heel. It was a long three days.

With first light we were able to see the cabin for what it was, an abandoned shell of a home, long without human contact. The windows had been shattered well-before the end, but the oddest thing about it was the station wagon parked up front, and the keys abandoned in the car.

It didn't start, the battery well and done but it ordered a small reprieve from the wind and cold. There was also a coat in the back, left almost considerately by the car's last tenant. It was moth-eaten and reeked of moss but when my teeth were skating against each other in the freezing November nights I didn't really care.

I had left my backpack back at camp with the tent. Alex couldn't think of the word to embody what that meant for me. I thought he was going to let me starve because of the dumb mistake that was in reality his own fault. He hadn't let me grab anything, and if he hadn't fallen asleep on post he never would have realized the mob was converging so late.

When I said as much he snapped at me, and then we didn't talk at all the second night. He didn't eat, so I didn't eat. I think maybe my shuddering got to him, because in the morning he split his final granola bar with me. There was no snippet of an insult attached, and he said nothing when I thanked him.

By the time Alex was ready to start walking again, we were verging on killing each other. It was amazing the toxicity our silence held, interrupted only by gestures and silent destroying glares. It was in forced silence and mutual blame we entered Verona.

 

**********************************

“Are you out of your mind?” Alex actually turned his head to sulk at me, which meant tearing his eyes off of the zombies mulling outside the strip plaza. “Or maybe, you're just blind.”

“I'm not saying we should just walk right up to it,” I bit back, agitated. “It's just if we created a diversion-.”

“Because that worked out so well last time,” cut in Alex. He had decided the hoard that had met us in the woods was one alerted by the car horn I had set off, conveniently forgetting the first one had existed at all.

“You-,” I started but Alex interrupted, stubbornly.

“No diversions. The grocery store is a stupid fucking plan. It's probably been raided twice over. We'll be lucky if we find dental floss. And for what price? Our necks?”

“So, what's the plan then?” I said tartly. We had already hit on two houses before being forced off the block by the stumbling proximity of ex-housewives turned diseased cannibals. One bedazzled and eyeless monster had gotten too close for either of our comfort, leaving us retracting back to the woods empty-handed and hungry as ever. We had happened upon the plaza, moving along in this fashion, stomachs growling audibly.

Alex and I didn't get along when we were full. The chill that stunned me from my core, combined with our hunger and his sore ankle meant we were about a breath away from trading blows. I ground my jaw to re-work the brewing slew of insults as Alex elected to ignore me, examining the plaza again.

“We could circle around the back,” I suggested, Alex actually rolled his eyes.

“Twenty up front. We circle around we're going to have to move into sight to get behind anything. I doubt all of them are going to be looking in the same direction at once.”

“It's unlikely, without a diversion,” I huffed.

Alex looked like he wanted to punch me. Instead, he bit his tongue, in a manner much like my own. He said nothing, which was more annoying than him saying anything at all. “Choices,” he said. “Are waiting until they maybe move, or moving on ourselves. I'll be moving on.” With that he straightened and backed off from the bush. My anger felt nearly physical, because he knew damn well I wasn't going to stay there by myself.

For a moment, I contemplated doing just that. I was pretty sure Alex wouldn't care one way or the either, but I couldn't stand being alone again and reluctantly I slunk after him.

 

 

Alex and I walked in tandem, shifting through the trees that bordered the apartment complex. We had circled it at least four times. I wasn't sure what he was looking for, or how this idea was any smarter than my idea to try for the grocery store.

There weren't many zombies at the front, and one at the back but the building itself had to be full. Even if it had been empty, I was sure it had a buzzer to unlock the front doors which was undoubtedly run on electricity, something the world had been without for quite some time.

Alex stopped short, leaning into the trunk of a orange hued tree to examine the ground-level window of one of the apartments. I followed the pan of his vision to see he was looking into a small blueish living room. The window had been partially boarded shut.

“This is what we're going to do,” he said. “I am going to pull back the board and wedge-open the window, you're going to kick open the screen as quietly as possible. Is that something you can handle?” He turned his eyes on me, large, green and mocking.

“Yeah, I can handle it,” I snipped back. The nearness of food kept my temper in check.

“Let's move.”

With the female zombies back turned, Alex bent at the waist, darting across the yard of the complex. I followed, a fidgeting shadow. In theory the plan had seemed flawless, mainly because of the motivator. In actuality, I lost all nerve as we approached the complex window.

Chances were there was a zombie in there and I was going to meet it leg-first. I considered that this was Alex's plan, and the reason he was manning the board. In my hunger, the murder-attempt after all this time, and in such a risky way, did not seem obscure at all. He pinched his fingers beneath the plank, drawing back hard. The exertion of moving the nailed in board sending blood to his face. The board popped off with a clack and he worked the metal slate between the window and pane. I readied to knock down the screen door, planning on being too fast for anything inside.

The decaying woman, who had been inspecting the grass more than somewhat dazed shifted sharply. She didn't seem startled, instead charging forward with the wild instinct of a lumbering animal. I turned and arced up the rifle, firing it at her head. The bullet shot from the gun in a muffled explosion, her blood painting the field.

I immediately saw stars, stunned as to what had happened. My face smarted wildly and I wondered if she had somehow punched me in the head. I waited for the eclipsing feeling of the bite, a close second to whatever blow had knocked me clean on my back. Instead I saw Alex, looking at me in half-disbelief.

“You've never fucking fired a rifle before, have you?” He wrenched the gun from my hand, holding it around the nozzle and grabbing my arm with the other to wrench me to my feet. I realized I wasn't dead as I cupped my eye, which seemed to bulge in its socket. I knew what had happened immediately. I had heard about kickback before, but been unable to apply any of that knowledge in the split-decision I had made regarding the zombie. “You're lucky you hit her, or she'd be devouring the two of us right now.”

“Wasn't luck. I aimed and hit her,” I snapped, though it was hard to sound justified when I'd hit myself in the eye with my own rifle.

“You hit something else too,” he told me, kicking in the screen. It fell with a flexing whip-like sound, landing onto the sea green couch. He moved into the room, standing on the couch and scanning with the gun.

I moved in afterward, still cupping my eye. Everything had an awful flashbulb effect to it, and I could barely see the apartment.

The living room was empty. Alex shifted to shut the board over the screen, the window pane itself shattered and mostly gone. It was a good expression for the entire place.

The coffee table had been shattered into over a hundred pieces, the television tilted onto its side, a large crack spiraling towards the center.

Alex aligned the rifle with his shoulder, moving like a hardened investigator as he narrowed into the empty kitchen, down the hall, and finally threw open the small bedroom door.

I followed, weapon-less, a small black and blue shadow. When Alex spun around he nearly crashed into me, scowling as he dropped the rifle. “You hold it to your shoulder, not your eye.”

“Thanks for the tip,” I said, still clutching my eye.

“Let me see.” He reached up to pry my hand off of the socket, investigating the impression. “It's going to be black as tar tomorrow. But you won't lose your eye.” He sounded wholly unconcerned, stepping around me to raid the small kitchen.

I moved in after him, angry with him but not sure why. He pulled open the pantry doors, revealing nothing. He hesitated to peal back the refrigerator doors, when he did the awful decaying stench filled the apartment like a blossoming cloud of rot. He slammed it back shut, both of us coughing.

He opened the last cabinet, which was also empty. “I told you we should have raided the grocery store,” I snapped now. I had a black-eye and it was for absolutely nothing.

“Yeah, and I told you to do whatever you wanted,” he hedged, throwing open the bottom cabinets to expose pots, pans and finally bowls.

“Because I was going to stay behind and do that myself.”

“Wouldn't kill you to do something yourself.” He spun sourly to stare me down. “Or, maybe it would.”

“Is that what you want?” I threw back, my own arms folded across my chest defensively. Alex elected not to answer, striding from the kitchen and beginning to wrench out couch cushions, as if hoping to find a hidden lean cuisine. “You're going to ignore me, again. Why am I even here if all you do is ignore me?”

“Then go,” he didn't look up from the couch he was destroying.

I turned to examine the apartment door, considering it. He seemed to sense my change in stance, turning to watch and folding his arms. I didn't want to go. I didn't have a thing to take with me, not a bat, a dagger, especially not a rifle.

But he'd directly called me on it, and so, I seriously considered it. Alex was a pain in the neck. Being alone, that was something darker than that.

Alex waited, and so did I. Eventually I looked back toward him, still furious.

“I didn't think so,” he said flatly and moved past me to tear apart the bedroom.

 

Alex didn't seemed to care, so I elected not to talk to him when his search for food in the bedroom and finally the single bathroom turned up nothing. I collapsed on the couch instead, cupping my black eye. Alex re-entered the room, jabbing my shoulder hard. I scooted over so he could sit, accepting the cup he thrust into my hands before it could spill.

We drank in silence, pretending it was something stronger. The gesture wasn't lost on me, though. Alex had pushed me until I couldn't be pushed anymore, and then stopped. It was the most I was getting from him, anyway.

********************************

 

Something was moaning in the hallway, creaking at the stairs that led up to the landing. My eyes snapped open at the sound, my body giving a jerky start.

“He's been doing that for a while,” said Alex from the hall. “I don't know why you decided now he was a threat. He was all the way by our door a minute ago. He's going back up again.”

There was a creaking sound as the zombie leant on the stairs, followed by a somewhat further rustle.

 

I don't know why my body had decided to clue in either, but it had also decided not to fall back asleep. My whole head throbbed from the center of my right eye. My hour of relief was over.

“Why are you up?” I sought Alex's shadow in the dark, but the black was immaculate. I could just make his shape leaning up against the bedroom hallway, where I had thought he'd been sleeping.

“I was listening to it,” he said flatly. “I thought that was pretty obvious.”

“You just said he's not a threat,” I defended irritably.

“I didn't say that,” said Alex. “Of course he's a threat.” There was a crunching sound as Alex's boots crushed across the glass, his body dropping onto the couch besides mine.

“So what do we do?”

I could feel Alex looking at me, inspecting me. “Nothing,” he drawled. “We can't see our hands in front of our face. Why would we do anything? He's a threat because he's evil incarnate wearing skin. We're quiet and he won't see us. Can you handle being quiet?”

“I can handle being quiet,” I huffed.

“Is this in the same way you could handle the rifle, because-.”

“Just shut up!” I yelled, my voice carrying. It burst inside my own head, making me feel light and woozy. “You never fucking stop, just stop-.” I paused, caught by the delirium in my own tone. I coughed, trying to blame the cracking on the dryness of my throat. I couldn't quite convince myself so I doubted I could convince Alex. I didn't care anyway, I told myself, tugging my legs closer to my body. My feet were cold in my boots and I was hungry and miserable.

“Don't yell,” he said tonelessly. “We were literally, just talking about that.”

I exhaled hotly, feeling very bull-like. “Then don't push my buttons.” I shifted in my spot, trying to make myself smaller than the imprint of my warmth, like I could wear it on me. I missed the stupid moth-y coat. “Was there a blanket in the bedroom?”

Alex didn't answer. After a pause I felt his weight levy, the glass crunching under-foot. I wondered if he was just going to go back to bed, but he returned a slightly larger shadow, dropping the blanket on the couch. I tugged it closer, tucking it into the cushions around me like a nest. Alex probably should have offered me the blanket in the first place, so I didn't thank him. I was after all probably less than half his size. If we were being logical we could have shared the damn thing.

But however tactical Alex was, his anger took the front burner to of his logic. So did mine.

And so we sat in silence, as if we were in fact alone as the creature in the hall lumbered down the stairs, calling out again in hunger.

I could almost relate.

********************

 

The door was cracked just enough to see into the common hallway, letting in the colder air that leaked in from the main doors. I could hear the zombie on the stairs, and it made me feel like I was going to throw up, despite how very empty my stomach was. Alex looked to me, like a silent reminder of the plan that I had not wanted to do.

“You can't just sit there all the time,” he'd said, as if he'd forgotten the many times I had not just sat there. He wanted me to take down the lone zombie in the hall, but now that I saw it I realized how large he was.

He wasn't exactly broad, but he was taller than me. His body was sweating blood from the front, a knife still jutting from a cavity in the heart-area that some poor sucker had aimed for. There was blood all around his mouth, and an exposed band of tissue and muscle like a hollow ditch around his neck – obviously the entry wound.

It was hard to see him as being a person, ever. He moved in a unwieldy careen, like he wasn't used to the weight of the atmosphere. His eyes were cloudy, leaking a mucous yellow fluid as he bumbled forward, rasping shallowly. He scraped up along the apartment door, leaving a small blood spatter as he continued on. I waited two clicking steps before pushing open the apartment door, stepping onto the linoleum. My heart was in my throat as I threw back my arm, aiming the baseball bat in a hard arc at the back of its head.

The bat seemed to rebound more than sink, the zombie turning and growling at attention. I backed up, blanching. Alex didn't move from the doorway and I wondered if he even cared. Was this his master plan to finish me off? It didn't need to make sense when I was still so hungry and frightened.

The man let out a terrible screech, throwing out an arm in the hopes of scraping the skin clean off my face.

 

******************************

She was never going to make it. If she couldn't face off one walking-corpse in a hallway, there wasn't much hope for her at all. It made me feel bitterly mad, instead of sad. It was just easier to get angry, here, at the end. I wrapped my fingers on the door to get the corpse's attention, rising my dagger in a greeting gesture. With the zombie's attention elsewhere, Eve rose the bat and crashed it into the side of its temple. It flew into the hallway, knocked off balance. I let the rest of the door fawn open, Eve was now looking to it, hesitating.

“You've come so close to not fucking it up completely. Don't stop now,” I encouraged.

She shot me a blazing look before moving towards the zombie. It was dazed but too motivated to assess it's injuries, attempting to get onto all fours and crawl to her. It hadn't done more than prop its arm up before she brought the bat down on its head, a blood-spray following the momentum of the bat that colored the hallway. The zombie was still attempting to drunkenly get to its feet, even as she rose the bat a third and a fourth time. It was the fifth silencing blow that did it, leaving brain matter exposed to the world and the creature finally limp.

“And imagine, if there were two of them. You spend half an hour on the weak one while the bigger one gnaws on your bone marrow.”

She flickered her eyes to me again, still clutching the bat tightly. The blood waxed across her face almost making her look malicious, and I considered for a moment she might turn the bat on me next. She must have been hungry though because she didn't argue past that, instead tromping over to the door and giving the knob a practice turn.

“Don't be stupid.” I grabbed her hand mid-flex. “You're alerting anything in there, ringing the knob like a dinner bell. Use your brain. You still have one.”

Eve wrenched her hand out from under mine, stepping back so I could pick the lock. She looked furious, which was better than her looking sad. I had thought maybe verging on starvation and with a large black eye she'd given herself, she might be starting to chip. I'd heard her voice catch the other night, but she was straight-backed today, her eyes black and indignant.

I was glad to see it, even if she couldn't understand why.

 

I dropped to attend to the lock, slipping one hair-pin in the key hole and using the other to align the bolts. Four minutes of rapt clicking and with a satisfying snap the bolt came away. The door pushed open an entire half-inch before sticking on the dead-bolt. There was a stiff crack as it did, and just as suddenly a roar as a bleeding face penetrated the space, jaw-wound open disconnected and gaping. I gave a start, jumping back and smashing into Eve, who stumbled backwards cursing. I quickly attended to my dagger, bringing it up and striking into the corpses forehead. I pulled it back bloodied, a heavy clot of brain matter sticking to the blade. I cleaned it on the ends of my shirt, reaching up to pinch the dead-bolt and using the dagger to saw at the chain.

I pushed open the door, stepping aside so Eve could lead. She still had my bat loosely held in her wrist, with her other arm she was rubbing her shoulder. I rolled my eyes at her and she moved forward, bringing back the bat, her eyes darting around the room as we stepped over the zombie.

I checked our blind corners first, then assessed the damage. Someone had been in the middle of breakfast when this all began. The table was half-turned over, upside-down bowls of cereal and congealed milk adorning the top. The terrible smell of rotting milk permeated the apartment. A vase had shattered near the coffee table, a solitary pillow having fallen off the couch.

There was a shadow on the floor that Eve was analyzing, hesitating to approach. I steered her forward with a hard prod and she shook me off, approaching the face down mass. It was the man of the house, maybe the husband of the woman who had greeted us at the door. He wasn't moving, and remained face-down on the floor. At the back of his head was a blood-spill, highlighted by the feeble morning light from the window. “I guess she shot him,” said Eve, glancing to look at the woman's crumpled body than back to the man. “He probably bit her, she shoved him off and shot him in the head.”

“Should have shot him before he bit her,” I expounded. Eve scowled.

“It was probably hard for her. I think they were married.” She was looking at the man's wedding band.

“Because no one has ever had to shoot their family member before,” I remarked harshly, turning my back on Eve. I examined the bedroom next.

The bed had been stripped of sheets. I found them blood-stained in the hallway, obviously the woman had attempted to make some kind of tourniquet of them. The room itself was relatively clean. There hadn't been too much fighting before the woman had gone for the gun. I wonder if she'd anticipated having to use it, under entirely different circumstances. There had been bruises on her upper-arms and face, colorless and fading like an after-thought. This had been a long time coming, but had taken them both out.

That's what the infection did, re-wrote the entire thing. If you went to the extreme it was still a notch above you, tripping you so you would fall.

 

I checked the bathroom. In the medicine cabinet I found a small first aid kit, plastic and yellowing. It was one of those old ones you acquired by some miracle of chance, and slowly took apart. I took out the nail clippers, some papery gauze and a bottle of aspirin.

“Alex?” Eve's voice didn't sound frightened. I took my time shouldering my pack to join her in the kitchen. She grinned, for the first time maybe since I'd met her. I grinned too. She was standing in front of a cabinet, full of cheap canned food.

 

Not all of it was something you wanted to just dig into. There was Manwhich, a thick nauseating tomato sauce, and instant noodles which you needed hot water for. We packed them anyway, knowing there would be a time we were hungry enough to eat instant noodles topped in spaghetti-water.

Creamed soups went into the pack, used more for topping things in baking than directly eating. Even now the thought of consuming the sludge directly wasn't off-putting. I would eat almost anything.

I wasn't reduced to condensed soup however. I opened a jar of peanut butter, moving onto the couch and away from the terrible milk-spill to consume my stock. Eve returned with canned Ravioli, eating like a dog with a fork. She wiped her face on her sleeve, the spaghetti-sauce smearing with the drying blood.

“You eat like an animal,” I told her, sucking peanut butter off the spoon.

“I am an animal,” she pointed out, leaning back into the couch. “And you're not so regal yourself.”

“Were you a college kid? Before? You talk like a college kid.”

“What's that supposed to mean?” Eve didn't pause her fork, simply shooting me a smoldering look.

“There's a type,” is all I said. Eve wasn't satisfied with that and set down her fork, waiting for me to embellish. I dropped the jar of peanut butter, moving to the kitchen to retrieve a glass of stagnant juice from the awful smelling fridge. I wondered when apple juice would qualify as alcohol as I sipped.

“A type?” Eve repeated, twisting to face me in the kitchen. “And what type am I?”

She was just going to get mad. She had to know that. “You must like being pissed off,” I told her, setting my glass on the counter top.

“No, you like to be evasive then act like it's my fault when I get offended by all the things you're not saying.”

“I'm not evasive,” I challenged. “I tell you when you're acting like a dumbass, don't I?”

“My type,” Eve repeated.

I tipped my head upward, as if seeing her future in the water-spot on the ceiling. “Trust fund baby,” I suggested, dropping my head to examine her. “A bit spoiled. Probably had horseback riding lessons as a kid, and art classes. High A's, maybe the occasional disappointing B. Apple of your parents eyes.”

Eve grinned, it was a mocking grin. “You, are so wrong,” she told me. “You found me in the suburbs, you can guess how old I am, so you think you know me?” She rolled her eyes.

“I do know you,” I told her. “Maybe not where you come from,” I started when she made to interrupt. “But I know you now, and no matter how much school you have behind you, you don't have an ounce of survival in you. You don't know how to make a fire. You can't fire a gun properly. It takes you five blows to kill a walker. Nothing you know is important.”

Eve's eyed bored into mine. Finally, she shrugged though she still looked frenzied. “So, what was your all important childhood like Alex?” It was a tender topic, and she knew it when she looked at me. “You've probably been firing a gun like Daddy taught since Daddy left. He taught you how to pick locks, fire a car, probably had your first criminal offense before you were twelve years old.” Eve moved to her feet, folding her arms, squinting at me for a better reading. “He probably came back from his bender's mad and hung over. I'm sure he beat the crap out of you.”

I moved across the room solidly, Eve didn't flinch away but she cringed when I grabbed the front of her shirt in my fist. She wouldn't back down but I could smell her apprehension. “Psych Major,” was all she said, her voice gravelly.

“You're pathetic,” I told her releasing her shirt. I grabbed my backpack off the couch, letting the door bang as I left her behind.

 

******************************

 

I wasn't sure if Alex was coming back. And I felt pretty pathetic too. They had been low blows and apparently close to some version of the truth. I had been mad though, the insinuation that my life had been paid for, that I'd ever been taken care of before now.

But the anger just made me feel empty. Alex was a jerk, but he was looking out for me. There was someone watching my back when I blundered, and even if he was just a torrent of insults there were plenty of times I had made things harder for the both of us and he hadn't abandoned me before. Maybe he'd had enough.

I was hurt, mad and too confused to think clearly. Instead I decided to take fifteen minutes to maintain myself. I washed the blood off my face and cleaned around my purple eye, the skin feeling hot and pulsing into my head. I searched the medicine cabinet and found a travel-size Tylenol two-pack, which I swallowed half of.

After I moved into the oddly empty bedroom. The bed was still naked, topped with regular pillows. I had the weird urge to make it but pushed it off.

The woman was taller than me, so her pants weren't going to do me any good. I washed my jeans in her sink, slinging them back on still damp. I exchanged my underclothes for a pair with the tag still on, and a bra that was too lacy for my own taste. The closest thing I could find to a fitting shirt was a chartreuse blouse, which hung over my lower body loosely. I was snapping the last buttons when the front door to the apartment bobbed open, Alex leaning on the door frame as I finished.

He didn't say anything. I didn't know what to say. I felt wrong but I also felt mad, leaving me in a stubborn angry haze. I settled on pretending nothing had happened. lifting the large sweater off the bed to slip my arms into, thumbing the small pack I'd found at the back of the closet. “It's small, but it's something,” I said indicating to the pack. “Where'd you go?”

Alex folded his arms and for a moment I thought he was going to ignore me. “Upstairs,” he said finally. “Sounded like a lot of walkers in the apartments. Family units are above this one. There was a quiet one at the end but as soon as I opened it I got bombarded. There was a lot of noise and the upper floor's in revolt – we should go.”

“Still want me to come?” I probably shouldn't have said anything. Alex simply shrugged, his face a mask.

He moved to drop his pack on the bed, unzipping it and unclasping the fashionable lock on my own pack. He switched over a couple of the canned food items, handing me back the bat. I took it, twisting the weight in my hands.

I still had the urge to apologize, but it was killed by the feeling of Alex's anger washing over me, the squishing feeling of being left behind however momentarily. Instead I showed him the coat hanging in the hall closet, with an insular layer warmer than his own. He exchanged it with his half-destroyed one. As we collected our things it was in mutual heavy silence. I wondered if our quiet communicated the same things, or nothing at all.


	2. Chapter 2

Alex and I didn't say much in the following week. When he did talk to me it was calculated cold commands. Like “Shut up,” or “Hard left.” When we had hanging silence where we could have hunkered down and exchanged words, all we did was eat. The clinking of our silverware the only communication between us, or the sound of our teeth clicking together in the cold. I had made a vow of silence. Apparently, Alex had made a similar vow. Both of us were too stubborn to break it.

Verona was a wide town, but small. With a car it wouldn't take much more than an hour to get through it. It didn't have a heavy population though, so Alex and I stuck around, avoiding the walking dead and collecting supplies.

Verona also seemed to have been hit hard in some areas. There was a stretch of housing where all that was left were the supports, the ground around it sooty and burnt under a layer of snow. There were zombies wearing half-destroyed military garb, guns still attached at their back. It was weird because Verona was such a small town, I didn't think they'd have such a large military base. I would have asked Alex but we weren't talking. All the same, it was kind of eerie. There would be stretches of houses with bikes still in the yard, a shadow peering out the back-window like Mom checking on the kids. Then there would be shredded camouflage in the playground, a tattered American flag wound around a branch.  
Maybe most towns were like this near the end. I only made sense of it when I found the word QUARANTINE across a tilting wooden sign, brushing the white flurries off. They had attempted to make Verona into some kind of post-infection ground. It made the emptiness even stranger, like they were only in the initial stages of planning when they were breached. 

“I wonder what they did with all the people,” I said, forgetting my vow of silence one day. Alex and I were moving beneath a tunnel, etched onto the side of it was SAFE HAVEN, in a different type-face someone had added HAHAHA all around it in strange red scratches.  
“What are you talking about?” Alex was examining the wreckage of a car that had nose dived into the center supports of the tunnel. The driver door was still half-flung open, the only sign of the driver a dark red spot from the seat all the way to the pavement. There was a left foot in the backseat, and that was all of that story.  
“The town. It has houses, complexes. it's a small town but there were definitely people here. If they wanted to make it a quarantine, they had to take everyone out, right? Then slowly let them back in, or something.”  
“They gassed it.” Alex ducked his head into the car, coming out for a breath of air. The decay of the leg left the air around the vehicle stagnant and awful. He popped the trunk, moving past me to inspect the inside.  
“How do you know that? Then where is everyone?”  
Alex folded his hands around a set of wire cutters, giving them an experimental swing. It was apparent he wasn't going to answer me. “Are you saying they knocked everyone out and relocated them? Was it in the paper?”  
Alex rolled his eyes. “No, it wasn't in the fucking paper. It was hush, hush, when the outbreak first happened. Verona was cleared to be made into a safe haven, low population made it easy and it was far away enough from where it all started that people thought they'd be safe. Military came through and locked everyone in camps. If you passed screening they let you back in. If you had so much as a scraped knee they put you down.”  
He slammed the trunk, still holding the wire cutters. He rolled his backpack to the front to stash them in the outer-pocket.  
“How do you know all that?”  
“Because I didn't spend the first three weeks after the outbreak with my head up my ass.” Alex was walking away from the car now at a less than leisurely gait. I had to double my pace to catch up, irritated but not ready to let it go.  
“So, you stopped for a bit of gossip at the beginning?”  
Alex rolled his eyes. On the horizon I could see walkers bumbling about, aimlessly floundering for something to set their sights on. Alex saw them and made a hard right into a yard, I followed itching at a bug bite on my wrist. “Why are you so reluctant to tell me what happened?”  
“I didn't realize this was a good time to stop for a gab. Thought they might want to say a thing or two.” He indicated to another two walkers, off the beaten path. They were pacing lamely, dis-interested. We could easily loop around them. “But, if you want to get us killed,” he shrugged hotly. “I heard it on the road, in the beginning. I was heading to Verona and bumped into a couple other survivors. They told me they'd just barely made it out of there. Guy's little brother had an old scar from the war, you could see the stitch imprints but they considered it a Moderate Risk. The other one was considered a Risk for having a goddamn burn on his forearm.”  
“Oh,” I said shortly. I figured Alex had a variety of scars. My guess at his upbringing had made it easier to place the large lash-marks across his shoulders as belt-wounds, deep ones. I hadn't noticed the gashes until well-after I had guessed at his back-story, it had made me feel pretty bad.  
My upbringing had left scars, but they weren't lash-marks across my back. It had nudged something like empathy in me. I still was keeping quiet because Alex was just looking for a reason to flip out, but I understood a bit better now. I understood him a bit better.

We'd been traveling for a solid month now. November was turning into December and with it had come the first snow. My hands were always numb, my jaw constantly clicking. We had swiped fleece blankets from the inside of some destroyed hovel, but I missed the sleeping bag, it had done a better job of keeping my feet warm.  
At night I kept on two pairs of socks and my shoes, staining the blanket with mud, blood and dirt. I was always damp with snow and never felt even close to warm. If it was really cold we made a fire, one of us staying up to keep it fed. I almost always nodded off in the heat of the flames, waking up freezing to it having died and Alex shaking me, cursing. 

It was snowing the day we entered town, re-engaging the plaza near the grocery store. Alex was sure it was empty, cleared by the small army to be rationed. Verona had failed relatively early, so it wasn't definitely empty, but it likely wasn't worth the effort. There was also a pharmacy, that Alex wanted to raid. He figured all the good stuff was probably elsewhere, but we could re-stock on bandages, needles and threads. Preventatives before the injury weren't a terrible idea. Besides that, there were likely canned goods left behind and we were running low. Last night we'd had to force down instant noodles dipped in a thick sludge of cream of mushroom soup. The taste hadn't been all bad but the texture was like swallowing road grease. We hadn't wanted to waste anymore water thinning the sauce. All we had left was a single bottle between the two of us. 

Up front the plaza seemed clear. We couldn't be sure we would be unseen by any walking dead mulling about the stores, and so had to be prepared as we approached in the open. I held my bat, Alex engaging his rifle by lining it up with his shoulder. He did a quick sweep before passing it over to me, kneeling on the snow kissed sidewalk to work the lock.  
There was a click from behind us and both of us froze. “Drop your weapons!” demanded a grinding female voice. I hesitated. “Drop it!” she snarled, and I saw her with the Remington pointed at my face. I slowly lowered the rifle to the ground, the bat making a hollow thud as it rolled into it. Alex tossed down his lock pick with an agitated flourish. “Hands where I can see them,” she continued, aggressively.  
The girl besides her said nothing, looking doe-eyed and surprised. Her eyes flickered from me, to Alex, then back to mine again. She had a friendly look about her, despite the similar features of the girl besides her. They both had curved eyes and were of obvious Asian descent. The girl with the gun had her hair pulled back from her face, which was tugged into a snarl. Her sister had her hair down, and was wearing soft pink gloves. It was a tangible difference.  
Alex didn't say anything. I knew he was thinking about the pistol in my sleeve. I could feel the weight of it, tied to my wrist by the trigger loop.  
“Stand up” she snapped, pointing the gun at Alex. “And take off your pack. Slowly!” Alex thumbed the straps on his back, letting the knapsack fall with an exaggerated thump. “Now your pockets,” she said, still pointing the gun at him.  
She didn't see what was behind her. Neither did her sister. It seemed to come out of nowhere, a dark shadow on the snowy blacktop. It left a maroon trail as it moved, its arm hanging lower than the rest of it. From it's mouth dripped a thick red sludge, dredging upwards from the open wound of it's throat – stifling its vocals.  
There was a soft scrape on the black top. The unarmed girl made to turn and screamed, her sister went to turn but she would be too late. I unwound the pistol from my sleeve in a quick gesture, pointing and aiming at the corpses head.  
It hit with a loud metallic sneeze, lodging itself somewhere by the zombie's eye. It was thrown off by the motion, giving the girl the time to turn her gun on it and fire at its head making a sharp grating sound as it impacted and he flew back in the snow.  
Alex took the diversion of her attention to reclaim the rifle, pointing it steadfast at the girl. “Drop your gun,” he snapped. She let it drop to the ground, rolling her eyes.  
“Look, we're friendly,” said her sister, gently now. “How about we all keep our guns and get inside? We don't know if anything overheard that gun fire. If we can just, move into the pharmacy without murdering each other.” Alex hesitated, I wasn't so sure myself, my gun still levied stiffly in the air but not pointed exactly at anyone.  
“I have a key,” she added, pulling at the key on her neck. “Come on Vynn. They look okay.”  
“It's easy to look okay when you don't have brain matter leaking down the sides of your face,” Vynn said thinly, but she lowered her gun slowly. Alex followed the gesture just as dramatically.  
The girl smiled, encouragingly and moved forward. Her sister looked like she wanted to jerk her back but I moved aside, slipping the pistol back in place on my sleeve and securing it as she opened the door.  
“I'm Sera, by the way,” she said, as if we were just casually bumping into each other on a shopping trip. She led the way inside. Alex didn't move and neither did Vynn, both not willing to turn their eyes on each others backs. I licked my lips and followed after Sera. Eventually the two of them entered, though I wasn't sure who relented first.  
It was obvious they were staying in the pharmacy. They had moved shelving units against the side-entry door, and had blacked out the front windows. There was a semblance of rooms made by the remaining shelves, creating a small alcove that must have been their sleeping area. They had sleeping bags instead of just fleece throws, and one had a stuffed rabbit tucked on top. It was easy to assume that was Sera's.  
“Who are you?” Vynn looked between Alex and me suspiciously.  
“I'm Eve,” I said, sounding slightly uncertain. “This is Alex.” The tension in the room was palpable, both of them clutching their guns ready to pop into attention at the slightest twitch. I knew Alex wasn't about to say anything, Vynn and him were openly glaring at each other. “We were just looking for supplies. We didn't think anyone was in here,” I said, somewhat apologetic. “We're not, awful people or anything.”  
“Shut up,” snapped Alex, as if I was betraying an integral part of our identity.  
“What? We're not. I think it's better we're clear on that then acting suspect, or did you think that would somehow work out?”  
Alex shot me a dirty look. “You're really going to act like you know what you're doing? You just wasted a bullet protecting someone who had a gun pointed at your head.”  
“Look, we're friendly,” Sera repeated, trying to diffuse the tension. “Also, thank you,” she said to me.  
“She missed,” Alex pointed out hotly. “If you're going to fire, at least make it count.” With that he crossed the room, moving to the shelving unit towards the back. Vynn opened her mouth to stop him but Sera shook her head rapidly.  
“Let him, we'll never use it all before we're moving on.”  
“He's a jerk,” Vynn deflected, looking to me for assent. I found myself shrugging, like I wasn't sure if I agreed. “How long have you two been out here?”  
“We've been in Verona almost two weeks,” I said. “Been traveling since the beginning. A month and a half.”  
“What is he to you?” She squinted. I didn't understand the question at first. “Sera's my sister,” she explained.  
“He's my friend,” I decided, shrugging like I wasn't sure.  
“Nice friend,” Vynn disappeared behind a unit, leaning against the wall to watch Alex who was rifling through his pack.  
“Where are you two going?” I asked Sera. “You said you're moving on?”  
“We're going to head South. There's a quarantine zone down there, supposedly it was more of a success than Verona.”  
I shifted my lips in my teeth, trying to think of the best way to broach the topic. “I know,” she said when she saw me looking for the words. “Verona was a failure, and they went overboard. But now they know more about the infection, and everyone going in has to have at least a paper cut. I'm sure they've worked out the kinks. Plus, it's nice to be aiming for something,” she half-smiled. “The wandering gets to us. You start missing just normal interactions.”  
I knew what she meant, though the idea of a Quarantine zone wasn't much more comforting. I knew how Alex would see it.  
“Where are you two heading?”  
“We're just wandering,” I admitted, glancing around the expansive pharmacy.  
“Are you guys hungry?” Sera said, noting the sweep of my eyes. I admitted as much and she seemed cheered by the notion of having something to do, telling me to have a seat at the pharmacy counter like it was a diner.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------  
The pack was a good three pounds heavier when I shouldered it again, moving back to where I'd left Eve just to see her on the counter, like a sitting duck. Sometimes I forgot how naïve she was to it all, then she would slip up, or worse yet simply act as if things were normal. She caught me shaking my head at her, shrugging coldly back.  
My teeth pressed together I moved to the counter, the bag slapping hard against the surface. “Having fun twiddling your thumbs?”  
“I'm being polite,” she said, turning to examine me.  
“You're a dream of a hostage,” I denounced, fiddling with the rifle in my hands.  
“We're not hostages,” she said. “We're free to go.”  
“Then let's go.”  
“Can't you just be nice? For like six minutes?”  
“You want me to be nice, to the bandits.” I tongued my cheek, shaking my head. “No. I'm going.” I sidled off the counter-top. She flexed her shoulders with irritation.  
“Alex,” she said, carefully. My name in her mouth sounded strange. “Sera's just getting us some food. Can't we just sit and eat? I know you're tired. I know you're hungry.”  
“I didn't say you had to go,” I told her point-blank.  
She looked disappointed, taking a breath to steady herself. “Please, five minutes. Come on,” she encouraged. “They seem nice.”  
“You're going to get yourself killed,” I told her steadily. “If someone points a gun at you, you shoot them. You don't shoot the threat behind them. Call me after your play-date, if you're still alive.” I turned away from her, aware of the sulky glower she was projecting in my direction as I pushed into the cold air, the warmth of the shop door sealing behind me.

I rounded the corner, dagger at the ready for the lumbering walker. It dove with a guttural growl and I plunged the knife into it's forehead, forcing it to its knees. It slumped over dejectedly, a weak punching bag for my building agitation. I couldn't get Eve's stupid face out of my head, and I felt strangely cold leaving her behind again.  
I'd gotten weirdly used to her. She was like a sarcastic tangible shadow, forever fucking things up and needling me with questions. Now that she was absent the air around me felt colder, which was oddly unsettling. I hadn't wanted to want her company, and hadn't thought I could, but somehow I'd become used to her. She was annoying and naïve, and in the life before this one I wouldn't have spared her more than a second look. And yet in this one she'd become somewhat of a friend, and I was leaving her with a couple gun-toting bandits.  
It was too late to turn back. If she got herself killed, that was on her. I forced off the recoil that came with the thought, listening to the choked hiss of a walker emerging from the alley besides the pharmacy. I plunged my knife into the side of its head, simply out-walking one that broke from the wood work and began to straggle after, its groans of hunger lofty and haunting in the brisk afternoon air.  
I stopped my jog at the residencies, slipping between a sect of houses to lose the zombie tailing me, moving for the first car I saw. It sat abandoned in the center of the road, reeking of leaked gasoline. It was un-drivable upon physical inspection and I moved on to a station wagon, abandoned in someone's drive way. I ran my fingers across the stickers on the trunk, a stick-figure family. Two boys, a mom and a dad. There was a small cat sticker, and a bird sticker. I hadn't known they made bird stickers.  
I looked to the house. No one had touched this car since before. It wasn't running and looked promising. I knelt to deal with the door lock, unaware of the lumbering shadow on the other side of the car. The pick clicked as I slipped it into the miniature hole, oblivious to the sliding scrape of a destroyed sneaker on the drive way.

 

The tension in the room dissolved when Alex left, leaving Vynn less stand-offish and Sera talking to fill the silence. She told me too much about herself, but Vynn never once spoke up to stop her. She told us about how they had come to Verona, just to see the Quarantine had failed. It had taken them forever to get out there, because they had come all the way from Oregon, making a diagonal trip until they had hit on West Virginia. “We have met a few people. Some not so kind,” Sera said, trailing off. “We only just barely got out of a bad situation. Vynn keeps a file sewn into her shirt collar.”  
Vynn cringed, but said nothing. “We had to slash the guys face to get rid of him. Then we took his car until it ran out of gas. It beat walking, especially as it got colder.” Sera shrugged. “Now the car's gone. We have been trying to find another but a lot of people left their cars still running when they died. If they're not out of gas the battery's destroyed. Then if there's a car in the driveway it means there's a family in the house..,” Sera trailed off. “That's the hardest to see. When there's nothing left.”  
“I'm sorry,” I told her. I was. I was sorry for all of us.  
She shrugged from her spot on the counter top besides me. Vynn was leaning against a shelving unit, mostly watching her sister talk to me. “We've all lost people,” she shrugged. “We lost our brother. We weren't there, but...He wasn't there, when we got to our house. We were out for lunch when it all went to hell.” There was guilt on her expression, she closed her eyes a moment.  
Vynn approached, dropping an arm on her sister's shoulder. “That's enough of that,” she told her. “Stop talking about him. You'll feel better.” She squeezed her shoulder then disappeared over the counter, I could hear bottles shaking as she went through the stores to see what Alex had left behind.  
“She doesn't like to talk about it,” said Sera. “But sometimes, I want to.” She shrugged. “Did you lose everyone?” She looked to me.  
“I didn't have much of anyone in the first place,” I admitted with a shrug. “It just made those spaces emptier, more final. Then I didn't feel anything about it, so there was guilt.” I paused.  
“You must have been lonely,” she said. “Like all the time. I've always had Vynn. We're twins.”  
“I mean, I was at a farm for a while. They were nice. I took care of the kids,” I said, drawling off. There was a pinch of hurt in it, and I shrugged. “I wasn't good at farming so I babysat, mostly. I kept them coloring, and occupied. I didn't teach them anything useful.” I leveled my head away from her own. It was my first time talking about it and a lot harder than I thought. Mostly, I didn't think about it, at all. “Maybe if I had..,” I trailed off.  
“It wouldn't have made a difference.” Vynn moved around the counter, holding a small bag that seemed to be full of pill-bottles. “These things take hands on experience. Plus, what would you have had to teach them? It was the beginning of the outbreak. I doubt you knew much going in.”  
“I didn't know anything going in,” I said flatly.  
“None of us did,” she confirmed but I shook my head.  
“Alex did. He knew how to fire a gun and pick a lock. He'd been in a few fights. I spent so much time being good that I didn't know anything practical. I still barely know anything.”  
“You seem like a good person,” Sera said. “You seem good with people.”  
“I got good grades. I can recognize the symptoms of ADHD, and a personality disorder. I know when someone's being defensive. Sometimes I know if someone is lying. But I feel too much, and none of that helps me. It just makes it all harder. I need to be tougher.”  
“Is that what he tells you?” Sera asked gently.  
“He doesn't need to tell me. I know. Survivor's aren't bleeding hearts. I want to survive.”  
“Survivor's aren't closed off either. You need something to live for, don't you?” Vynn questioned, moving onto the counter top at my other side. “Other than someone biting your head off every time they decide you've screwed up.”  
“Poor word choice,” I elected and she sighed.  
“You know what I mean. Alex was in here for four minutes and he was as mean to you as he was to us, the bandits,” she delivered. “I know his type. They take what they want and leave behind the pieces. I never would have taken my gun off him if it weren't for you.”  
“It isn't like that,” I corrected. “He isn't like that,” I found myself saying. “I know he seems mean but he's not. He looks out for me. He just expects me to cover my own neck.”  
“Right.” Vynn didn't believe me. She wouldn't, Alex put on a good show.  
“You should come with us,” said Sera clearly. “To the Linford Quarantine. There will be other people there. I bet there will be people who could use your help.”  
“Kids,” echoed Vynn.  
I hesitated, then shook my head. “Alex would miss me,” I said. “And I'd miss him,” I added before they could cut in. The truth was, I felt his absence even though I wasn't alone – and I was worried about him. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------

The lock popped and I swung open the car door. A breach in the sound barrier drew my attention to the charred-faced man, his hair entangled with flesh hanging from his face as his head dove at my arm, mouth primed to rip open my flesh.  
I jerked my arm back as the rotting mouth made to close, stepping backwards and sideways. A scuffle in the street caught my attention, another walker taking agitated steps in my direction. I disbanded my dagger, stepping back away from the closing in zombie and ramming the blade into the soft point of his head. I didn't have time to dislodge it, twisting as the female zombie threw out a hand, her fingers scraping the skin clean off my face. I stepped backward, stumbling over the corpse of the male zombie and landing hard. I pulled myself backwards as she stepped forward, groaning and lurching as her body seized without the input of her brain, from her mouth a long string of saliva beginning to fall.  
Behind her walkers were breaking from the woodwork, plowing off a porch. The invisible conglomeration heeded some unheard alarm call and all began heading for me. I turned, lurching to my feet and moving into a run. I narrowly avoided an eyeless walker, lumbering blindly from the gap around the edge of the house as I ran. I cut through a yard, loping around the gate. Something was barking not far off and with a strangled yelp the sound died out.  
I was in the backyard of a house, wide with windows framing a disaster scene. A zombie had her face pressed to the glass, scraping against it as if she could reach me if she were hungry enough. The swings in the playhouse swung forward as another walker lumbered forward, tangled in the rusting chains he jerked back. I'd lost my dagger, Eve had the bat. All I had was the rifle and not wanting to waste a bullet on a trapped walker, I surged forward again, loping the fence and diving into a yard.  
A mucky green pool greeted me. I could hear something moaning and lumbering nearby, the scraping of feet. I hadn't lost all of them and could hear the pitch in their call. They were hunting me. A patch of woods rustled on the horizon, releasing five sallow-faced creatures, their skin hanging on by mere threads. They wore burns across their features, their mouths mercilessly left intact and hanging open.  
I turned around the edge of the pool as they approached, lumbering across the tile on one side. With all of them to the left I moved to the right to outpace them. The zombie who had been tangled in the swing had pulled forward, now missing an arm. I leveled the rifle, firing point blank at his head. The gun bucked as his head exploded, marring the snowy landscape.  
Behind him, I could see the infected coming up the channel along the side of the house. Besides the pool the others were catching up on me. I surged forward again, hanging a sharp left to scale the fence. The walkers curving around the side of the house were approaching rapidly, their flaking hands scraping for my ankles as I moved just out of reach, loping around the other side of the fence to drop into some other desperate yard. I avoided the road, hurrying across the stretch of yard, mindful that dropping into just any yard could put me face to face with another decaying face.  
I lost my luck on the third jump, coming down awkwardly in front of dwarfish zombie, his forehead black with rot. He hobbled forward and I out-maneuvered him. I didn't want to waste another bullet on him to climb the fence, so darted for the street, dropping low as I approached the road. I cast long looks both ways, finally straddling the porch rail to jimmy the lock on the front door. I pushed it open, sealing it behind me and leveling the rifle were anything to come flying at me. I kept low as I moved, hoping I wouldn't have to fire and risk anything within ear-shot coming. I scanned the living room for a quieter weapon, removing a long silver poker from the vase by the fire place. I tested it in my hand as the zombie lumbered around the wall corner, waddling towards certain death.  
Impatient, I met it half way, the poker making a terrible slapping sound as it cut through his skull and let free a torrent of blood. I brought back the poker again and again, the blood flying back on my face and clothes, until I could almost taste the metal, my hand aching from its death grip on the weapon.

\---------------------------------------------------------------------  
“What happened?” Eve looked stark and wide-eyed. Only she could. Vynn was looking at me suspiciously, a hand laced around her sister's wrist to keep her back.  
I'd had the bright idea of changing my shirt before I'd returned to see if Eve was ditching me or not. Even still, I was covered in blood spray. I had made half an effort to wipe off the blood, but was still looking a disaster, and that was without the dredges on my cheek.  
“Are you coming or not?” I said, folding my arms. Eve had some color back in her face. She had been talking while I circumvented death. She looked almost happy, it was a dangerous illusion to foster.  
“What happened?” she repeated. She made to approach, I jerked my face away from the nearness of her hand.  
“I already cleaned it. It's a scratch. I got quartered, while you were making friends,” I cleared up. “But networking's important. They taught you that in school, right?”  
Eve could see what had happened written on my face, maybe that was why she didn't bite. Maybe it was because the fight that had ensued last time. “Are you coming?”  
“Yeah,” she said, which somewhat surprised me. I had been preparing myself to write her off, it was obvious the twins had become comfortable with her.  
“Then let's go. Car's running.” I turned my back on the questions that followed, all three of their voices following me out the door.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------  
Alex didn't look happy. He hadn't been extremely happy before we had been held up in the first place. The added tension of being converged on by a mob of undead, having his face cut up, and having to give a lift to the people who had held a gun to his head had him dark and angry. He gripped the wheel as he drove, his knuckles white.  
The car drew a lot of attention, infected surging forward as we turned corners, leaving the houses bleary behind us. The attention it drove forward it also outpaced, leaving the living dead chasing and then relenting, staring hungrily after us.  
“This is a waste of gas,” Alex said, mostly to me. It wasn't as if Vynn or Sera were going to agree with him, or argue. Vynn had settled on what she deemed respectful silence, her sweater bound up in her hands. Sera was trying to be unobtrusive, tracing her fingers on the window. “We're already down two bullets because of them,” he said, as if they could not hear him.  
“Two?” I repeated.  
“I had to shoot another when I was getting the car.”  
“And you're blaming us for that?” said Vynn from the back, her vow of silence broken. “You probably would have screwed yourself regardless. That's what happens when you plunge forward before you think.”  
“You're right. I should be thinking,” he said, drawing the car to a stop with a jerk. One of the walkers who had been following the car began to make significant purchase. “Taking two people who mean nothing to me, out of my way, it just isn't logical.” He pressed the button, unlocking the car doors.  
“Alex,” I said, bracingly. “Just stop.”  
“I did stop,” he repeated, unamused.  
“You can't be serious,” said Vynn from the back. The walker had approached the back window and was now beating on it, flexing the plexi-glass. From the sidelines another two walkers were coming. Sera looked nervous, she was losing confidence.  
“Alex, they let us take drugs, and bandages, okay? They-.”  
“They didn't do shit. They happened to be where we were. We would've taken it regardless.”  
“I told you,” said Vynn, looking to me. “I told you, there's a type. You still want to go with him? Because he'll leave you on the side of the road when you annoy him enough.”  
“She's irritated me beyond that,” Alex said, twisting to look at Vynn. “Never waved a gun in my face though.”  
“We were defending ourselves!” she defended. “You would have done the same thing, or worse!”  
Sera yelped as a walker banged up against the glass of her window, leering in with pink-tinged eyes. A terrible mucous was running down its nose and into its mouth, some sticky conglomerate of dead white cells. I imagined it smelled like death.  
“You can't say if you had happened upon us you wouldn't have shot us point blank.”  
“He wouldn't have shot you,” I defended, uneasily. The tension was building, and it wasn't lost on me we were all carrying weapons. “Alex, can we just-.”  
“Look what your new friend's holding,” Alex cut in. I glanced in the rear-view mirror, Vynn had her gun in her lap, and had simply pulled her sweater off of it which was pointing angled upward at me.  
“I knew this would happen,” she said flatly. She leaned forward, keeping the gun pointed on me as she pulled the rifle from Alex's lap, leaning back into her seat. “Drive.”  
Alex paused, then jammed the gas hard, sending us all forward with the momentum. “I don't get why you're pointing it at me,” I said almost calmly, it was almost like part of me had expected this.  
“Because he'd miss you,” she stated thinly. “Besides, if I pointed the gun at him he would try to shoot me. You wouldn't.”  
“Is that my type?”  
“I'm sorry,” she said, she might have meant it. The thick silence pressed in as the wheels rolled across the road, leaving the walkers behind, their bloody fingerprints still staining the glass. After a few minutes of open road, Vynn spoke up again. “You can get out here.” The car levied to a stop in front of the gas station, it was long bankrupt and abandoned. I could see Alex's jaw twitching in my peripheral vision.  
“You're taking the car,” I said, like it was a statement.  
“You could still come with us,” Sera said, softly.  
“I'd rather be alone,” I gunned back.  
“You are,” Vynn said. “Get out, Alex first.”  
“My bag,” said Alex flatly. It was sitting in the backseat. Vynn seemed to think about it, her power surge putting her high on top.  
“Eve will take it,” said Sera, gently. She looked to her sister for confirmation. Vynn nodded, mutely. “And she'll take the rifle too.” Vynn shook her head in the negative.  
“Get out, Alex.”  
Alex pushed open the car door, standing along the edge of the sidewalk in front of the station, his arms folded.  
Sera lifted Alex's backpack, depositing it on my lap as Vynn clamored into the drivers side door. “Give me your pistol,” she said, opening her hand for it.  
“We gave you a ride. You're going to take everything from us?”  
“It's survival. You picked the losing team.” She opened her hand for the pistol, her own gun still pointed at me. Alex watched through the window, impassive and unmoving like a realistic statue. I removed the gun from its place on my wrist, dropping it in Vynn's hand, unwilling to touch her skin.  
“I hope you remember this moment,” I told her, flickering my eyes over hers.  
“Don't try your Psych bullshit on me,” she said. She emptied the rifle of its bullets, then the pistol, pulling on my backpack to drop them into the exterior sleeve, zipping in the rifle. “Tell your boyfriend not to shoot out my tires.” She dropped the empty pistol on my lap. “Good luck, Eve.”  
I didn't say anything, glancing in the rear view mirror at Sera. She looked wide-eyed and small, but she didn't speak up as I left the car, slamming the door behind me.

\--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Alex didn't say anything. He didn't have to. I felt like shit, and the intensity of his silence only made it worse. The entire thing felt like my fault, and not four minutes after we were kicked from the car did it start to snow. He said nothing as he pulled the boards from the gas station window, nothing as he replaced them, nothing as I bobbed the flashlight inside the empty convenience store.  
The place was bare. There was a single line of shelving, a built in counter and a destroyed bathroom, exposed plumbing winding from the ground like a spider web. Even the mirror was rusted and shattered.  
The floor of the convenience store itself was filthy, roaches skittering in the corners. We sat there while he tied my pistol to his wrist, with the most minimal of sounds. “Doesn't make sense for you to have if you won't use it.”  
“It's for Infected,” I said, unable to help myself.  
“Infected, don't steal your car.”  
I half-wished Alex would call me stupid, or yell at me, or anything. Instead the silence was curdling, rotting away at whatever we had developed over the past month and a half.  
“I'm sorry,” I said finally. Alex didn't say anything, reloading the rifle and laying it across his lap. He moved through his pack, pulling out his blanket to cover his chilled legs, busying himself with opening a can of soup and eating it cold.  
I didn't eat, tugging my pack closer so it could cover the terrible hole in my stomach. I eventually pulled out my blanket, wrapping it around my upper body like a hood. Even then I was freezing, my legs curled underneath me as the world went white outside the station.

\----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Alex was feeling more talkative in first light. “I never should have let you talk me into it,” he said, stuffing his blanket back in the pack and kicking away the soup can. It rolled loudly across the tile floor. “I'm never going to listen to another goddamn suggestion of yours.” He shouldered his pack. “What are you sitting there for? Get up. We need to move.”  
It was still snowing as we exited the gas station. I imagined the car had a heater as we moved into the snow drifts, my pants immediately absorbing the moisture and clinging to my skin. My sneakers weren't made for snow weather and immediately felt wet and awful.  
I hoped all the zombies would freeze, like cave men in those old cartoons. I imagined when they thawed they could melt, as I hurried after Alex, my hands folded in the alcove under my neck. They were numb and freezing, the aluminum bat somehow colder than the air itself. “I almost died for that car,” he said as we squinted into the snow. The wind was picking it up, making it hard to hear him raving.  
Across the street was a two-story tilted house. There was no car in the driveway, just a blanket of snow drifts. I followed after Alex, the wind howling in my ears as we crossed the street. He jimmied the lock with shaking numb hands, cursing as he fumbled and dropped the hair pin.  
They were hard to see in the breeze which blew flurries across our vision. I could feel them landing on my eyelashes, weighting them before melting. I was going to get us both killed, I was almost sure of it now. Everyone said I wasn't made for survival, and now I was bringing Alex down with me. I felt awful.  
Alex eventually worked the lock open, after much shaking and cursing. By the time we pushed into the house I couldn't feel my hands at all, trying to flex the knuckles and failing. I followed numbly after Alex as he searched the bottom floor. When I got in his way he cursed and brushed past me, nearly knocking me over.  
When he came back down, he was some how even madder. “House clear?” I asked.  
“Why don't you look?” he snapped back, moving down to inspect the fireplace in the living room. “It's fucking decorative,” I heard him snap as I moved up the stairs to look into the bedrooms.  
There were two electric run space heaters, entirely useless without electricity. I brought down another blanket and a couple heat packs I found in the bathroom. I offered one to Alex but he left it on the floor, dropping back on the couch. I moved to the other side of the couch, leaving a wide berth of distance between the two of us.  
It was weird being in the house, it looked simply paused. Like Mom and Dad had left for work, the kids gone for school, and no one had ever come back. There was a cat dish in the kitchen that made the story a little sadder, but a pet door told me the animal had probably left when food got low.  
We sat in silence, shivering on the couch. I thought about what Vynn had said about me being alone already. She was wrong though, this was worse because I had let him down in a major way.  
“We can find another car,” I said quietly, the pause broken only by the jarring of our respective teeth.  
“All we need is a full tank of gas, a live battery, and enough time to dig it out of the snow drifts,” Alex said. “Maybe we can give the Infected shovels, and they can help out.”  
“I'm sorry,” I said again.  
“Am I supposed to forgive you?” He turned to look at me, for the first time since the incident.  
“No,” I muttered. “I mean, I didn't think you would.”  
“I won't,” he corrected. “You feel like shit and you should. That was our way out of the winter alive. We're going to freeze before they eat us. Then, they'll probably eat us.”  
I drew my hand across my brow, some of the warmth had come back into it but still it shook. “We won't freeze,” I said finally. “They won't eat us.”  
“Got a plan?” Alex questioned. “I'd love to hear it.”  
I didn't say anything.  
“No, you just wait for me to come up with the plans,” he continued, shaking his head.  
“You are my plan,” I said. It sounded weird in the open air. “I know we'll figure it out. Okay? Is that so bad?”  
“Yes. Think,” he snapped, turning to examine me again. His eyes were dark and angry. They went between green and brown regularly, but they rarely seemed to be green anymore. “You can't just wait for life to happen to you. You know what happens out here. Death happens to you. If you had just left with me instead of hanging around for an hour we could have gotten in the car and left.”  
“Well, maybe if you hadn't been such a jerk-.”  
Alex laughed, nothing was funny about it. “You're right, Eve, if I had been nicer they wouldn't have stolen our car.”  
“They didn't take our guns,” I said. “If it had just been you, they would have taken everything.”  
“If it had just been me,” he snapped. “I'd still have the fucking car!” His voice was one of the angriest things I had ever heard. I shifted elsewhere unable to keep the penetrative eye contact, it made me feel even more miserable, which I hadn't thought possible.  
Eventually, shivering, Alex fell asleep. As soon as he did I got up, despite the protest of my every limb. I tied back my hair, retrieving my pistol from the pack. I left his rifle alone, slipping a heat pack in my coat and stealing extra large gloves from upstairs. I shifted my entire shoe into some work boots that had belonged to the man of the house. I stole the younger girls ear muffs, bright and pink.  
I was a picture in a coat too big for me, work boots, and ear muffs too small. I looked at Alex, who still managed to look mad in his sleep. There was also something else there, something that made me feel strangely drawn to him. I squished it down, moving for the front door.  
The world outside was a white frenzy. I grabbed the snow plow off the porch, stepping into the blizzard.

 

\------------------------------------------------------  
My eyes flashed open on the tail-end of a nightmare. It would have been ridiculous, months ago. These days a nightmare like that was realistic. A leering blood-soaked face, clamped onto my arm. A bite that was never just a bite. I drew my hand to my shoulder, half-expecting to see teeth marks. There was nothing there of course, and I breathed thinly attempting to relax.  
It was hard to relax. I was instantly angry, remembering where I could be instead of where I was. I cast a look in Eve's direction, sure she was asleep.  
The blankets looked oddly flat in her spot. I pulled on them with a sinking feeling.  
She was gone. I immediately looked to the packs to see hers was still there. She had picked a hell of a time to go for a walk. Outside the snow was nearly physical, making everything a white blur.  
I waited for about four long minutes before kicking off the blankets, grabbing my rifle and pulling open the front door. The window had been a terrible way to gauge the actuality. It felt like snow was being hefted down my shirt as I stepped into the wind, trying to catch a flash of clothing, or anything. I didn't see Eve anywhere, but it didn't make sense. Why would she have left her pack if she wasn't coming back?  
I twisted, noticing the absence of the snow plow. The dots connected with a solid sigh. Was she really that retarded, or just that emotionally crushed? I didn't know how I was going to find her, but I knew if I didn't her own bleeding heart would get her killed. I moved down the steps, feeling even more agitated than before.  
I felt madder than before too, but now it was at Vynn and her stupid sister. If they hadn't happened, none of this would be happening. If Eve got herself killed, it was because of them. She had been so stupid, but if she washed out then it was just me, out here, alone. It was something I couldn't think about, shoving the thought aside. The gas station across the street had vanished under a crush of white snow. I looked down the block, but all I could see was snow. This was the kind of weather you could walk right into a walker in, never noticing them until they were clamped on your neck. Was Eve worth dying for? I ignored the question, figuring not being alone was worth looking on a surface level.  
I chose to move left, barreling down the street. The winds push back was nearly physical. There was no way she could have gotten far. She was smaller than me, and the wind could easily force her to her knees. This would be terrible weather to be snuck up on in. I wasn't feeling optimistic, feeling oddly dead to everything as I moved through the snow, looking for Eve.

I couldn't feel my nose when I entered the first house, gun risen at shoulder height. There was a car in the driveway, a small Toyota Camry with a line of beanie babies poking out the back over the snow drifts. I thought Eve might be inside but the place was empty. I headed up to the top floor just to find nothing. The hook on the door didn't have the keys either, nor did the table in the living room.  
There was however a corpse, skull crushed in and fresh behind the couch. Eve had been here, and failed to find the keys. She couldn't be much further down. I moved back into the white haze.

\------------------------------------------  
I dug my shovel into the snow bank, trying to force off some of the snow that had stuck to the back of the car. I couldn't tell if the lights were turning on or not, the car too covered in white to give much of a response. If it made a chirping sound it was beneath the howling of the wind.  
The blizzard was awful, and I was cold to my core. My hands ached inside my wet gloves, and snow had fallen in the gaps of my work-boots, wetting my sneakers from the top.  
The one good thing about the storm was it made it impossible to see. It also made a racket of old shutters and loose hangings, absorbing the attention of the walking corpses and spinning them in mindless circles.  
It took me entirely off guard when a large hand grabbed at my shoulder. I reached for the pistol and the gloved hand smacked it away, Alex's face inches from mine “Are you insane?” he yelled into my face. I could only barely hear him over the wind.  
“I – probably,” I admitted, my voice drowned out in the storm. I shook the keys in my hand to attention, pointing at the car. The back lights lit feebly and Alex shook his head, jerking the shovel from my hands to finish digging the trench around the car. I shielded my eyes with my hand, the wind tossing flurries into my line of vision. Alex jerked open the backdoor of the car, pushing me towards it. I ducked inside the backseat of the vehicle, Alex moving in besides me red-faced. He slammed the door against the howling wind that killed all conversation.  
“Are you trying to get yourself killed?” He turned to glower at me, his face stiff and dusted white. I sniffed, wiping off the wetness accumulating on my face.  
“I was just trying-,” I started but Alex cut me off.  
“You are fucking out of your mind. How are you supposed to live through this thing when you don't think with your brain?”  
“I was thinking!” I hollered back, somewhat hurt. “I was trying, trying to fix things!”  
“You can't just fix things in the middle of a goddamn blizzard, Eve! We would have looked when the weather died down. What's the point of finding a car if you get killed doing it?”  
I was too tired to keep shouting, sighing heavily. “You could have used it. I wouldn't have gotten us both killed, I guess. And I wasn't planning on dying anyway.”  
“Death doesn't care about your plans,” Alex said stiffly. He shook his head, in disbelief at my stupidity.  
“What do you care?” I said flatly. “You don't even seem to care that I'm here.”  
Alex gave me an incredulous look. He was covered in snow because of me, nearing hypothermia, and I don't think he knew why. I didn't. “You are the stupidest person I have ever met,” he said, clamoring over the seat divider to start the car. The engine roared tepidly, muffled under the heaps of snow. I climbed into the passenger seat, pushing myself into the heater which rapidly thawed my numb skin. 

\-----------------------------------------------------------------  
The snow stopped falling, at some point, but there was no moving the car until some of it had melted. There was no one to clear the roads, and the miniature car couldn't take on the snow. We were forced back to the house of origin, miraculously meeting no walking dead on our numb trip back. They were still chasing the tatters of a flag, attacking loud banging shutters and loose doors.  
The snow didn't melt enough to move until almost a full week later. Every time it seemed like we could get moving, it would pick up again.  
“It's snowing again,” I'd announce over our dwindling food supply. Alex was reluctant to leave the house in the heavy snowfall again. Both of us had picked up a small cough and decided to lay low while we recovered, sipping cough syrup like it was water. Alex must have been drinking too much of it, because he hadn't brought up how I got our original car stolen since the blizzard. And that car had been large enough to take on the drifts, which I knew he was thinking about every time the cold picked up again.  
In the meanwhile, we were stuck inside. Our pressing silence was no longer quite so pressing. I shared the Walkman I had stolen from the pharmacy, the singleton CD playing music Alex complained about, but listened to. We lay on the bed at night, not touching, individual blankets keeping us warm. Between us the headphones would hang like a long distended Y, the CD spinning into oblivion as the snow melted and piled outside.  
I don't know how exactly we wound up in the same bed. The place had three bedrooms but only one was a Queen. The smallest girls bedroom reeked of urine, the point of origin a cat-sized stain at the end of the bed. The other bedroom was fine, but it had a big uneasy window that left a spidery chill in the room.  
So we'd gone to sleep in the big bed, without talking about it, letting the music spill in the unsaid connotation of what a bed was for. I pretended not to feel awkward. Alex didn't seem to feel awkward at all. Alex didn't seem to feel much of anything but anger, though.

 

The snow began melting on Christmas Eve. I was almost disappointed. “It just doesn't seem Christmas-y without snow,” I admitted. Alex looked at me dubiously.  
“It's the best Christmas gift I've ever gotten,” he said, looking out the window at the receding drifts. “It means we can get the fuck out of here.”  
“Sure,” I said. “It's just not very Christmas-y.”  
“We could dress a walker up as Santa,” he suggested. I think it was the first joke I'd heard him make, and it was about decorating a corpse.  
“We could find some smaller ones to play the elves,” I hedged, darkly.  
“Wreaths out of intestine,” he said lightly. “Tendon mistletoe, mucous egg nog.”  
“We could drink,” I suggested. “That's Christmas-y.” I disappeared into the kitchen. It had been gently cleaned by the last occupants, left in pristine condition if you could ignore the awful rot coming from the fridge. I found the bottle of Vodka in the lower cabinet, bringing it out. “Though I don't get what's with that mucous.”  
Alex practically ripped the bottle from my hand. “Why didn't you tell me this was here?” He snapped the bottle cap against the counter-top, it glanced off with a soft ding.  
“I thought you knew.”  
“Get a glass,” he said. “Like a shot glass,” he corrected when I went for a drinking glass. “This stuff tastes like poison, you're not going to be able to sip it out of a cup.”  
“I've had Vodka before,” I snipped, collecting the shot glasses. “Drowned in orange juice, but still.”  
He poured me a shot, pushing it towards me across the counter top. “Why don't you sip that?”  
I tried to, making an awful face as the burning sensation hit my throat. “That's disgusting,” I licked my teeth just to taste anything else. “I can't drink that.”  
“That's why you do it in shots.” Alex overturned the glass, downing it and dropping it numbly on the table top. “Easy.”  
“Show off,” I said. He poured me another shot, pushing it toward me. I downed it, trying to be graceful, making a face when the taste hit again. I already felt loopy. 

An hour later I felt more than loopy. Alex and I were on the couch when I tugged my pack over, impatiently. “Merry Christmas,” I said, tossing a balled up fuchsia tank top at him.  
“It's not really my color.”  
“That's the wrapping paper,” I grinned. “Though I'd pay good money to see you in fuchsia.”  
“Your money's worthless,” he told me, opening the top. Inside was a Walkman, similar to my own. “You had this the whole time and made me share yours?”  
“Only got one CD,” I said grinning. “I didn't think it through..”  
“Does it even have batteries?” He shook it and I laughed. It was too easy to laugh.  
“I thought about batteries. There's batteries,” I said, jerkily. Alex looked entertained.  
“You're drunk. You're such a lightweight.” He opened the Walkman to look inside at the dial. “I'm sure there's a CD here somewhere that isn't absolute garbage.” He dropped the Walkman on the coffee table, disappearing upstairs for what felt like six seconds. I gazed at the fake fireplace as he did, setting the bottle of Vodka at the center.  
“Because it makes you warm,” I said when he came down. He squinted at the Vodka in the hearth, shooting me a wordless look.  
“Very festive.” He popped something loud and abrasive into the CD player, sticking a headphone in his ear. I looped the other around my ear, lazily leaning into the cushions. The song passed in relative silence, breezily. “This is almost nice,” I mentioned, uncertain about saying the words out loud. “Last Christmas my mom drank the whole bottle herself. She was such a bitch.” I closed my eyes, oblivious Alex was speaking until he kicked me.  
“Ow,” I complained. “What?”  
“I said I didn't know your Mom was a drinker.”  
“You could try, like, poking me,” I said, imitating the gesture and gently poking his shoulder. “Kicking is not nice.”  
He poked my side hard and I laughed at the flurry of nerves it sent off. “Not there! My shoulder.” I indicated to my shoulder. He gently poked it, his hand dropping anti-climatically, brushing my shoulder incidentally as it fell. Something had shifted, and it suddenly wasn't funny anymore, instead I felt like I was sixteen again, bumbling and nervous. “More alcohol,” I stated, moving to my feet and pulling the ear piece with me. Alex grabbed at it before I could send the Walkman spilling to the ground too. 

 

\----------------------------------------------------  
Eve drank too much, falling asleep half sideways on the couch, the ear bud still perched in her ear. I watched her sleep through my own alcohol fueled haze, feeling okay but not drunk. I also felt a bit weird, almost comfortable, and it was a terrible feeling. She mumbled something in her sleep, twitching slightly and I wondered if she had nightmares too. We probably all did.  
And those nightmares would be banging on our door again, soon. We had to get moving. With the blizzard over, the walkers had started roaming again, converging into miniature packs. I'd be happy to get back in the car and head out of here.  
Getting to the car wasn't as uneventful as getting back had been. “You need to pay attention,” I told Eve, who had nearly tread in front of a walker. She was sloppy post-drink and had swung the bat late, glancing off the side of his head. It had barely responded to the clumsy jerk, converging on her. I'd pierced it's forehead with the dagger, angry with her clumsiness. “You're going to get us killed. You make stupid decisions sober. I don't know why you thought drinking was a good idea.”  
Eve opened her mouth, flabbergasted as I brushed past her, shouldering the rifle as I overlooked the street. The car was muddied with melting snow, the windshield still streaked with dead bugs. I unlocked it and she dropped into the passenger seat. “I didn't hear you complaining yesterday,” she mumbled.  
“I didn't know it was a two-day event of stupidity with you. I can handle my alcohol,” I said, bringing the engine to a start. The car purred beneath us like a sentient being, the relief of it starting washing over us like air.  
“It's a Christmas miracle,” Eve said, instead of engaging me. I blamed that on the drinking as her fingers flitted over the heater.  
“We can't keep it on. It's a waste of gas.”  
“Try the radio,” she suggested. I pressed the button, a loud film of static filling the car. I jammed the button again, drowning out the sound. “Don't you think we should try a few stations? Maybe there's a message?”  
“Yeah, let's waste gas on what we already know. Verona has fallen. Come to the Southern Quarantine Zone to get car-jacked.” It was the first time I had brought it up since the blizzard incident. I pulled the wheel away from the curb, the car crunching afterward. “That shit you pulled with the blizzard was your stupidest mistake to date. I didn't think you could do worse than getting our car stolen.”  
Eve was glaring at me, her tongue probing her cheek. “I got us a car, didn't I?”  
“Just because it worked out doesn't make it a smart idea,” I snapped.  
The silence that filed in was hearty, filled with unsaid edge. “Where are we even going?” Eve interrupted.  
“Why don't you tell me?”  
Eve flicked back on the radio, skating between static-ridden stations. Eventually the frenetic click of the knob got on my nerves, it didn't take much. I jammed it off, her fingers still on the knob. “Just stop.”  
“You're impossible,” she said. “You act like you don't know what you're doing.”  
“What am I doing?” I looked to her bitterly, outside her window was a sallow face drawing further and further behind.  
“With the moment, and then the pushing. And you're mean, all the time,” she snapped.  
“I'm sorry you've convinced yourself that I am someone else,” I said flatly.  
“Okay,” she said thinly. “Whatever.”  
“Yeah,” I said. “Whatever.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
We made camp in the car that night, heading nowhere in particular. I imagined Alex had an idea in mind and simply wasn't sharing, just to be difficult. It was like he could only be a decent person in increments smaller than an hour, and then his jerk alarm went off again. I was determined to be the bigger person, so when the car stopped and we had eaten in relative silence I rifled back through the pack. I lifted out the chocolate bar and handed it to him as if it were something marvelous. Really, it was.  
“Merry Christmas,” I said.  
“Where'd you get it?”  
“Pharmacy,” I said. “I was going to give you the Walkman but drunk me decided that was a Christmas Eve present.”  
Alex opened it, splitting it down the middle and handing me half. As a peace offering he poked the button on the radio, static spilling out. He wiggled between the stations, not expecting much of anything. He went to jam the button back off but I stopped him, grabbing his hand. “Wait, go back.” He flicked the knob backwards and the beginnings of a message recanted.  
“Come to Westerrose, a haven of Peace in a World on Fire.”

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------  
Alex was hesitant, and I wasn't sure why. If we weren't looking for somewhere to survive, I wasn't sure what we were doing. The government run Quarantine Zone's were a promised disaster, but Westerrose was something else completely.  
At least it seemed like it was, to be fair we didn't have much more than the recording to go off of.  
“Look, it's not that far,” I said, though I didn't know what I was looking at. Alex had unfolded a map at my nagging, circling the general direction of Westerrose, a town in Kentucky.  
The car was motionless beneath us, the beam of our flashlights flickering over a rough route on the list.  
“Where do you think this is, exactly?” I traced the general lower half of Kentucky. Alex grabbed my hand pushing the pointer to another space entirely. It didn't seem that far by finger tracing but covered a few hundred miles.  
“How long will that take?”  
“Maybe about a week, if we don't run into any trouble,” Alex said, squinting at the map as if he could make out miniature people if he looked hard enough. “I don't know. We don't know anything about it.”  
“We can check it out, from the outside. If it's too weird, we'll just leave. It's not like we're sticking around here for any reason,” I pointed out. We were parked in the middle of a camp ground, which had luckily been out of season. Our only other company was a trailer that we planned to raid first light, but it stood stock still, not entirely threatening.  
There was also the main building, a small cabin with pamphlets on how to treat wildlife, and why littering was bad. We had yet to check it out, but weren't expecting anything marvelous from either place.  
“If we get there, and I feel off, we're not going in,” he said carefully. I think it was the first time he assumed we instead of just saying I.  
“Sure,” I said. “You have good instincts on this stuff, I'm comfortable with that.” However comfortable I was with that, Alex was uncomfortable with the partial compliment, shooting me a dirty look. “I'm not being sarcastic,” I said carefully.  
“I know.” He bent the map, stashing it back in the compartment. Outside the breeze was hollering through the trees, leaving a hushed ghostly sound winding through the gaps in the car door. It was creepy, and it no longer felt like Christmas. It hadn't been much of a Christmas to begin with.  
The chill descended in the car rather quickly, and I felt really exposed being out in the open. Alex didn't seem to feel as vulnerable, clamoring into the backseat to lay out. He had to practically fold in half to fit, probably thinking of the reclining seats in the van as he buckled to stretch out as best as he could. “Try not to take off in a Blizzard,” he said as he shut his eyes.  
“Merry Christmas to you too,” I snipped, curling up in my own seat. Alex was asleep in minutes, but I listened to the wail of the wind in the trees and something else, distant but not too distant. It was like a cry but mottled with breakage, unnatural with death. It was unsurprising the sound followed me into my dream, chasing relentlessly.

\-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
I was running from a corpse. It was just one, but she was fast – running instead of walking. Her legs were like a human's but completely bare of skin. Her hands lashed out with perfect agility, but they were nothing but bones. I wound around a large ravine, skating along the edge of a water fall. She cackled behind me madly, her skeleton face bleeding mucous, her hands reaching out for me. They traced across my face and I yelped with a start, bursting forward from my dreams. 

The rotting face wavering inches from mine didn't help and I let out a shout as the zombie banged up against the glass. Her nose was a ditch, her eyes large black sockets, her forehead decaying from the center, the blood staining the window as she banged against it.  
My original yelp had tumbled Alex out of sleep, my secondary scream sending him sitting up with a forehead-splitting crack as he banged his head against the roof of the car. He cursed loudly when he saw what I was screaming about, reaching down for the aluminum bat and jabbing my shoulder with it. “Do it yourself. Use the driver door.” He scowled, like my fear was bothersome to him, rubbing at his head. I shot him a look, backpedaling into the driver door and prepping the bat in my hands. I jerked open the door, the zombie giving a raspy mumble as it limped around the front hood. I brought back the bat, jerking it down on her head. It banged hard enough to pin her to the roof of the car, the metallic clank of aluminum on the hood making my ears ring.  
I didn't hear the corpse stumble behind me, only Alex's call of alarm. “Watch out!” I spun as the walker stepped forward, hands grazing across the back of my head, hand outstretched for me. It wasn't planning on getting tangled in my hair, but it worked in its favor and I was stuck fast trying to rip the decaying hand from my head.  
It was strong, male and towered over me, stepping closer as I back pedaled, the mouth open and gaping, the dislocated jaw spilling dark red blood. I tripped over my own two feet, the walker falling with me, blood pouring over me as it made to gnash my face in it's teeth.  
A large blunt instrument ejected from its head as it stilled, Alex wrenching it off me. My hair yanked with it, pulling my head up, now caught like netting in the zombie's hand. “Did you even fucking look around?” he hissed, his face was flushed with anger as he knelt to rip my hair free. I yelped as he tugged too hard, scowling.  
“Stop, I'll do it!”  
“And we'll sit here while you do? Keep still.” He grabbed for his dagger, I grabbed his wrist to stop him.  
“Don't cut my hair off!”  
“We're in the middle of the god damn camp and I can hear another walker coming!” he countered, his eyes flashing. It was so early for them to be so dark.  
“Then kill it,” I snapped back, working to unwind my hair from the dead walker's hand. Alex turned, snagging my bat and moving to greet the walker that emerged from the woods, lurching and made hungry by the noise. I worked the last of my hair free as he brought down the bat a second, then a third time, leaving the bleeding corpse still in the dirt.  
“You're still on the ground,” he snapped, as if I didn't know. “Do you have any survival instinct, Eve? Any? Use your fucking eyes! Or maybe you could wake up and use the fucking bat!” I moved off the ground, rubbing mud off my hands onto my pants. I could feel my knees bleeding into the denim, my neck wet with walker blood.  
“Fine, I didn't see him but what was I supposed to do? Ask for him to wait to chew me to pieces so I could get some momentum with the bat?”  
“Overpower him. Don't let him take you by surprise. Don't let it fucking pin you. Rip your fucking hair out?” listed Alex, pacing like a pent up zoo animal.  
“Okay Alex, I'll try real hard to grow taller and manlier so I can be bigger than him-.”  
“I didn't say you needed to grow larger than him, use his weight against him, kick his legs. Don't fucking freak out!” He was practically yelling the words in my face. It was almost funny, if I wasn't so mad. “You're not any better at this than day one,” he said, which was a flat out lie.  
“I am better at it!” I countered.  
“You still can't move your mouth and think at the same time. You can't walk and have a logical thought, you can't swing and plan. You're on one setting, and its empty staring.”  
I was startled by the insult, and stunned still by the rage it induced. “I am not empty! I am smart, I am smarter than you! Just because you were brought up on baser instinct does not mean you are better than me!”  
“It means I'll live longer,” he said, throwing out an arm for emphasis. “Maybe you're just not capable of thinking and fighting at the same time Eve. Maybe you just don't think at all. Work on it.”  
“I think,” I seethed, my anger frothing over as I stepped closer. “I think all the time Alex! I think about all those things you won't think about and try to work through them because I can't shut it off like you! I can't just put all my feelings into being mad and just pretend I don't give a shit about any of this! I think everyday, about how I'm going to die, how you're going to die, how you're going to leave me alone when you die or I'm going to turn or you're going to clean your hands of me and take off and just leave me somewhere!”  
“Then stop making stupid decisions,” he said flatly. “If you can handle that.”  
My hands balled into fists. Alex noticed and grinned. It was such an unfriendly gesture, an animal-like flashing of the teeth. “Are you going to punch me?” he said, closing the distance. “Go ahead, do it,” I could feel his breath on my face and it made me nervous in the strangest of ways. Something in me didn't want to get hit. Something in me did want to punch him. Something in me just wanted to stop, and calm it all down. My heart was racing in my chest and all my air felt stuck in my lungs.  
“I should have gone,” I said. “But I defended you,” I shrugged lamely. “They said you were the type to just leave me somewhere and I said they were wrong. But they were probably right,” I said, forcing myself to maintain eye contact, even though I was on the verge of very angry crying. I hated that, that default setting of so mad that my eyes just couldn't handle it.  
“Who? Your little friends who stole our van? You don't think they would have picked up and left when they realized you can't hit a target two inches in front of your face? You're useless, Eve. You're fucking useless.” He stepped back, leaving the air oddly cold without the clout of his breath. He didn't turn and stare, moving to the trailer and wrenching open the door. It slammed behind him hard, echoing in the air. It was a stupid thing to do, but I didn't care very much.  
I moved over to the hood of our car, burying my forehead in my hand. My head was splitting, my throat tight and dry. I closed my eyes, for a minute, knowing I was a stupid, useless, sitting duck. If something were to come out in my four second reprieve I was dead, but maybe that was a good thing. Maybe Alex would even feel guilty, which he should have.  
I flickered my eyes back open, my survival instinct refusing to string me out to dry. I was unpracticed, but I wasn't useless. I had a lot to offer. More than that, Alex needed me weather he would say it or not. I could see it when he let his guard down, but most of all when he forced it back up. He was angry with me because I was mortal, and not impulsive enough to make quick decisions. If I died, it would hurt him and he would be alone. He was doing whatever he could to keep himself from realizing that, which meant catching me in the crossfire.  
And I was sick of it, so sick of it. 

I levied to my feet, moving off of the car to retrieve my bat from where Alex had tossed it on the ground. I kind of wanted to go and hit him with it. Instead I moved to the main cabin, peering through the window. I couldn't see anything going on inside, and moved to the front door which was locked. Alex hadn't taught me how to jimmy the lock yet, so I returned to the window, pulling at the boards. They didn't budge. I pulled harder, putting my back into the motion.  
Something in the tree-line rustled. I turned, pulling the bat closer. She stumbled out of the woods, her hair full of twigs and leaves. I wonder if they had gotten there before or after she died.  
Her dress was pink, but blood-stained. Her hair had been done up in bows, that had been torn apart during her exploration of the woods. She still looked lost, but there was next to no little girl left to her. She saw me and moved forward, a lurching stumbling gate. I stepped off the porch of the cabin, biting my bottom lip.  
She was smaller than me. There was that, which made it easier and worse all in the same breath. I swallowed as I brought back the bat, her hand outstretched, grunts of hunger escaping her in heavy snorts. I brought the bat down with a meaty thunk, her blonde hair staining with redder, brighter blood. I brought the bat back again, swinging it down, my vision running as I finished her off. She stilled and I stepped back, wiping at my eyes. Her blood was on my face and clothes, and my head ached from my earlier fight. I suddenly wished I had just ripped it all out, it felt stupid to even try to keep something as dumb and replaceable as hair.  
There was a crunch on the dirt. I glanced up, Alex still a decent enough distance that he couldn't tell me he just hypothetically murdered me. He glanced at the corpse of the girl, then me. His expression betrayed very little, but his anger seemed to have abated. We stood there, looking at her for a moment longer before he closed the distance, pulling at my hand. “Here. Merry Christmas.” He dropped the ring into my palm belatedly.  
“Nice to know you were thinking of me.”  
“Then throw it out.” He turned and moved up the porch to the cabin, breaking the lock of the front door. I listened to it creak as it opened, his shadow following him into the cabin. I turned the ring over in my hand, a simple silver band. I slipped it on my index finger, spinning it. It was loose, but stuck on my knuckle, too big to fit and too small to fall.


	3. Chapter 3:

Eve gazed out the window at the broken down highway behind us. The road was mostly empty. I shifted the wheel to the left as a knot of crashed and abandoned vehicles cropped up. They came up every few miles, twisted metal and detached plates making getting through a challenge. The car squeezed between a titled town bus and smashed in Toyota, the smell of spilled gas permeating the car. There was a cracking sound as the rear view mirror fell of the Toyota, joining a ripped open car seat and the contents of a purse on the asphalt. A walker bumbled across our path. I sent it spilling backwards with the front edge of the car as it rolled back to speed once more, leaving the Infected lost in the tail lights.  
Eve spun the band around her finger, saying nothing. Part of me wanted to break the terse silence, the other part was indifferent to the wall and took almost a pleasure in it. I'd managed to put up that wall after all. Maybe she would fucking learn now. But I didn't know that she was rethinking her tango with the walker. It was more likely she was replaying our fight, reconsidering Vynn's offer to her. She was the sort to be stuck on regret instead of pushing past it to learn something new. It was frustrating all over again. I flicked on the radio, switching to the message which still breathed clearly into the car's speakers. Westerrose.   
I shut it back off, satisfied with the repeat, flexing my fingers in my gloves on the wheel. The highway was wide open, dusted white with falling flurries. It was still cold in the car. I didn't want to use too much fuel with the heat, but it looked like the snow was picking up.   
“Grab something out of my pack,” I said, not looking up from the road. She shot me a look but twisted in her seat to rummage through the contents, coming up with a can. “Something I can eat with one hand.”  
“Sip it,” she suggested, popping the tap and balancing it on the cup holder. It was bottom heavy and almost fell, I threw out a hand to catch it. The passive aggression was not lost on me. She'd come pretty close to hitting me back there. I'd wanted to reach out and shake her, walking away when the urge became so powerful I could feel my fingers twitching.   
She looked satisfied with her power play. I wanted to pour the soup on her, instead sipping lukewarm chicken noodle broth through the partially peeled opening in the lid.   
Our exchange was followed by the terse quiet, as if it had never left. The quiet was interrupted by a sudden popping noise, the car shifting with the sudden change in weight distribution. “Was that the wheel?” Eve asked.  
“Do I look like I fucking know?” I propelled the car further, as if I could outrun the budding problem, and the three approaching Infected. I brought the car to a stop as it started to slink dramatically to the left-side, grabbing Eve's bat to head off the walkers that were coming up in the side-mirrors. She pulled the bat back.   
“I can do it,” she said flatly.   
“You can't even handle one.”  
“Then I guess I'll die.” She tugged the bat back, moving out her passenger side door. I readied my new hunting knife, moving outside the car feeling a flash of nervousness. The zombies were approaching in near tandem, it would be tricky and I had to keep an eye on her. It would definitely take her more than a solitary swing with the bat to bring them down.   
“Just go back in the car,” I told her, my pulse picking up. “I'll handle it.”  
She didn't move, steadying the bat in her hands. This was pointless, stupid, and there wasn't time to argue it. “Aim with the impact of the upper middle half. See that making contact with the center of its head. If it's stunned, move for the next one.”  
She nodded, placating me. I wasn't sure she was even listening.  
The walkers converged, an awkward family unit spanning three different races and statures. One was male, Hispanic, his eye hanging from his socket like a bulb of garlic. The other was a black woman, the entry wound at her hip practically leaving her doubled over as she moved. The third was a Chinese woman, her hand tangled in a bear trap, a blossom of blood at her stomach.  
I went for the male, bringing the dagger down at his forehead, stepping back and pulling him with me to avoid the ambling Asian woman. Eve brought back her bat, stunning the nearly-crawling woman, who skated to the ground. She brought back her bat again as the dark woman dove for her, hitting hard but losing momentum as she pushed upward. I moved forward, interrupting the woman's head. Eve's feet narrowly skated away from the sweeping growling arc of the woman now crawling along the ground. She brought down the bat with a heavy smash, the woman I had stabbed toppling as the one on the floor finally stilled.  
“Keep watch,” I told her, moving to inspect the car.  
“Are you sure I can handle that?” Her expression was torn between mock surprise and irritation. I ignored her, turning to the front left wheel of the car. Enough air had escaped to leave it as flat as a pancake. I licked my lips, eying the underbelly of the car. I moved to the driver-side door, pulling the release valve for the trunk which opened with a soft pop. Eve was scanning the landscape at our back, I cast a look out in front of us. There were several zombies ambling forward, far away enough to not yet be a threat but they would be soon. The nearest male was large, even for me.   
“Can you change a tire?” I turned to look at her.   
“No,” she said. “Never done it before.”  
I tried not to get mad. This was going to be tricky. I pulled the jack from the car, wedging it beneath the car and kneeling as I began to crank it. “Keep an eye on him,” I told her. “He gets closer, tell me and I'll handle it. I can't have you fucking up.”  
“It's okay, I'll die really loudly so you can save your own neck.”   
“Stop being a cunt.”   
She opened her mouth as if she was going to respond and thought better of it turning to survey the approaching walkers, glancing occasionally to her back. Eve was in a mood I had seen her in before, and I could feel that wall was not just a shield but a sound barrier too. “I'm bigger than you, it'll be easier for me, just tell me when he's closer.”  
“Yup,” she said. I reached for the cross wrench, removing it from the trunk to snap on the hub cap and twisting, it stuck fast and I grit my teeth pulling into my arm with the motion. Eve moved past me, readying her bat. I threw out an arm to push her back, pulling the bat from her hand by the top and approaching the walker that was coming up on us first. He was tall and moved with a cave man like gate, groaning with his every step as if devastated with exhaustion. He was taller than even me, hovering above six foot four. Eve would have looked like a kid with a toothpick swinging at him, and it took four large blows to even sway him off his feet enough to angle my hunting knife into his head. Coming right up after him were two females, moving in tandem. I could hear the whirling of the crank on the hub cap as I swung the bat, fracturing two more skulls.  
“Not all the way,” I stopped her hand on the wrench. “You do it manually from here.” I tried to keep steady, but I could hear more of them come. Lumbering feet, ceaseless undead wailing. I turned to pull the bolt off the rest of the way with my fingers, pulling at the deflated tire and tossing it down on the road. I dropped onto my back despite the terrible vulnerable feeling of being belly up and blind. I slipped underneath the car, working to pull free the spare tire. Eve's feet clipped nearby, I could hear the bat skating on the ground as she paced. She stopped suddenly.   
“Alex..”  
I moved out from underneath the car with the spare, sharing a look in her direction. My stomach sunk as I took on the visual assault of a few hundred lumbering bodies. Driving into them with the car would risk the car. Without it, we would be violently disassembled in seconds.  
“Start lowering the car,” I told her, popping the wheel onto the rim and draping the nut over the loose screw, twisting frantically.   
“Do we have time?” She moved to the crank, whirling it in a tight circle.  
“Yeah,” I lied.   
“Normally you would just call me retarded,” she said. “The fact that you're not, tells me that this is going to be close.”  
“Just shut up,” I told her, spinning the second nut on. If it made her feel better when I was an asshole then I could definitely do that for her. The car was barely moving downward. I pulled the crank from her hands working it down quickly. “Get in the car. I need six seconds.” The heads of the first Infected were beginning to appear. Eve hesitated to move, instead lifting the old deflated tire. “What are you doing?” I was sweating profusely in the cold open wind, the muscles in my upper arm aching with exertion as I spun the crank harder.   
“Thinking,” she said and turned the tire on its side, arcing it like a bowling ball into the approaching walkers. They split at the middle, knocked off balance from the impact of the rim. She pulled the rifle from my bag, pointing it at the appearing front line.   
“Don't you dare start firing,” I told her as the wheels hit the pavement. I pulled the rifle by the nose out of her hands, the stiffness of her gestures not lost on me. “Get in the car, we're going now.”  
We moved back into the vehicle as the fallen zombies were crushed by the ones ambling behind them. I threw the car in reverse to move sideways across the highway, aiming for an exit. Eve and I turned to watch the hundred walkers give chase, disappearing behind us as the car gained speed on the round-about, bursting onto another stretch of open highway. 

 

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
EVE

It was quiet as the car slipped from the exit into a residential neighborhood. Night had turned the sky velvety, the streets and houses lit up by nothing but pinpricks of starlight and the glow of the moon. Alex's eyes skimmed the houses, maybe looking for somewhere to sleep or just watching for Infected. He wouldn't answer if I asked, and I was to stubborn to breach the immaculate quiet. I was pointless to even try.

Alex pulled the car into someone's yard, stepping out only to unlatch the gate as I sat up straight, watching our sides. Nothing followed us and he returned to the car, cutting the engine near their back porch. It felt open and exposed even on the dead end street, shadowed by the naked elm trees.   
I slipped from the car to close the gate behind us, entering the tiny woods to relieve my compressed bladder. The trees seemed different, their branches looked like skinny arms in the snow. Maybe I had never paid attention before. I raked my fingers across the rough trunks, dawdling. I didn't want to go back to the car, approaching the small playground near the front of the small woods instead. I ran my fingers along the cold plastic of some child's slide, like I could draw a memory from it, or some nostalgia. It just made me feel colder inside and I knew it wasn't because of the falling temperatures, thinking back to the child Infected I had killed earlier.  
Had she lived in a house like this? I looked to the cresting house. It had large open windows, encompassing complete darkness. The one at the center had been shattered, looking like a mouth with jagged teeth. I dropped into a spot on one of the swings, brushing off the snow and letting my feet pull me in a swing. The wind bit at me as I closed my eyes. I could feel Alex watching from the car, probably thinking about the stupid risks I was taking. 

He said nothing about it when I moved back to the car, though I had been able to see him sitting, waiting for me to come back. He laid back down as I shut the car door behind me. “Try not to take off in a Blizzard again.”  
“Didn't do anything wrong this time,” I replied.  
“You didn't do anything wrong?” he repeated. “You almost got bitten and you didn't do anything wrong?” He was sitting up now. I had somehow restarted our earlier argument, I was beyond willing to do this again.  
“Why don't you just lay down and go to sleep then continue being a dick in the morning?” I suggested.  
“You have to know, that you did everything wrong,” he drawled, his tone steady and annoyed.  
“Fine,” I said. “Sure, I fucked up with the walker.”  
“Isn't that what we're talking about?”   
“I wasn't aware we were talking at all.” I pulled my backpack into my lap to remove the Walkman, planning on silencing Alex completely as I slipped on the headphones and leaned back into my seat. They pulled from my ear abruptly as Alex pulled them back and I felt my fingers twitching with trapped anger, the many things ripped from my hands today coming back to bite.   
“What is it I did wrong, exactly? I hurt your feelings?” he questioned, still holding to the headphones.  
“Don't try to make me feel insignificant for being hurt,” I snapped, jerking them back from his fingers. It was weird, arguing with him half upside-down in the dark. I turned onto my stomach so our heads were at least level.  
“That's all on you, I don't need to try.”  
“There's a word, for people like you,” I told him. “I think it's abusive.”  
“You wouldn't know abuse if it knocked you in the face.”   
“Yeah, belittle me, that's it. How about you call me a cunt some more? Don't forget to tell me how pathetic I am.” My voice was rising, sounding hot and uncontrolled in the car.  
“Chill,” he said. “Unless you want to get yourself killed.”  
“By them, or you?”  
Alex blinked, I guess he was surprised. “I never threatened you. Never,” he said. Now his voice was rising.  
“You told me you wanted to put my head through a wall,” I reminded him. “Did you forget about that?”  
“I never seriously threatened you,” he said, with the same air of authority. I snorted, hard.  
“Oh, okay. I didn't know we were playing then.”  
“If you think I'm threatening you, just wait until you're out there on your own. You have no idea who's out there. You have no idea what they will want to do to you.”   
“Is that going to happen, soon? You going to leave me out here?” I bit the inside of my lip, tasting the metal.  
“No. I'm not going to leave you,” he said almost carefully. “But I can't always be there, and when I'm not, you need to have your shit together.”  
“Where are you going?” My voice was angry, the behemoth in my chest was skittish.   
“I'm not going anywhere. But I don't know what's going to happen. This is the end of the world, Eve, it's never going to work out perfectly.”  
“You think you'd die before me? You've said it yourself I can't shoot, I can't fight-.”  
“Sure, when it comes to walkers I have the upper-hand,” he conceded. “You're forgetting about people.”  
“Why would someone kill you and not me?”  
“Do you really need me to answer that?”   
I hadn't really thought about it. My mental block clearing I realized what Alex was saying. “Because I'm a girl.”  
“There you go.”   
“That's great, so you have it all thought out. You're going to get murdered and I'm going to get kidnapped by rapists.”  
“I don't have it all thought out, Eve. I'm looking ahead, thinking logically. You can't avoid these things if you don't think about them. You need to stay a step ahead.”  
“Is that a step ahead of us?” I questioned. Alex's shadow was dark, but I could still make out his features, his eyes darting around in the shadows as if he were treading water.   
“I don't know.” Alex paused. “But you need to toughen up. If I can hurt you, think about how bad someone else can.”  
“I don't care what someone else has to say about me,” I snapped, not realizing what I was inferring until the words had left my mouth. “I don't care what you have to say either,” I added. “But. Less than, what I care about someone else saying.”   
“I don't even know what you're talking about,” Alex muttered, finally laying back down. I doubted he had misunderstood me.   
“Oh, I said the care word and he's done with the conversation,” I announced to no one in particular.   
“What's that mean?” He shifted so he was leaning forward, looking uncomfortably splayed across the back seat.  
“You know.”  
“No, why don't you tell me?” he pushed.  
“Remember how I said I was a Psych major, Alex? Do you remember that? You're just textbook. I can feel you pushing me away. I can feel that little wall you keep between us. As soon as you start to feel anything for me you shove it down with anger and frustration because it makes you weak. And, good for you. I'm so glad you were able to figure that out, because I sure as hell wish I had that ability, growing up or now. But I didn't, and I still don't. So I can pretend, and you can, just, whatever.” I rolled onto my back, no longer willing to make eye contact. I felt kind of stupid and I wasn't sure why. I knew I wasn't wrong but if Alex insisted I was then I would feel even stupider.   
“I don't do that,” he said into the open air of the car. “I don't pretend.”  
“Sure.” I pulled my headphones back over my ears, jamming the button on my Walkman. Nothing happened and I scowled, sitting up to fiddle with the batteries. They were dead. I tossed the Walkman down, the ear phones wrenching out of my ear as I did. It was all I had wanted from this miserable day and it had failed me.   
In the backseat, Alex had laid back down. I wondered about what he had said, wondering what the hell he had meant. Telling me he didn't pretend meant two things, with two opposite meanings. Either he wasn't pretending, and didn't care, or he cared and wasn't acting like he wasn't. Neither of these things made me feel too great.

 

I woke up shivering, cold to my core. The winter sucked without a heater, without a bedroom. I was also stiff as a board, my muscles aching and tightly wound. The first light seeped in through the windshield like a sun directly in my eyes, making it impossible to sleep past six in the morning. I missed sleeping in. I missed my bed. I missed a breakfast that didn't consist of stale pretzels and acidic apple juice.  
Alex was already at the drivers side, having started driving some twenty minutes before I woke up. The car was stopped in a completely new location, in the back lot of a medium sized store. I glanced around feeling slightly off-kilter, even as we ate a small ration of breakfasts. I couldn't figure it out from the back of the stores, four brick buildings in a variety of colors. Employee-only doors and at the way right a loading garage, sealed and frosted with snow. I swept the crumbs of a Pop-tart from my palms, breaching out quiet. “Where are we?”  
“Camping store,” he said, swirling mouthwash back into a cup. He smelled like methanol and mints, it didn't bide well with Cherry Poptarts and I was still hungry. “We'll replace the tent, grab some lures. Sleeping bags.”  
“What do we need lures for, everything's frozen?” I pulled open a small bag of pretzels, chewing as I scanned the empty parking lot.  
“We should bring something to Westerrose. If not lures then some hunting traps.”  
“Do they have guns?” I asked, sipping from the juice box.  
“If they had guns, I would have said, and grab some guns.” He set the plastic cup down, passing off the Scope.  
“You were doing so well.” I took the scope, tipping it into my mouth. It burned, I push open the door to eject it on the asphalt.  
“Don't expect my personality to change for you.” He pushed open his own door, slipping his hands back into his gloves.  
I stepped past the blue stain in the snow, shutting the door quietly behind me. “You're right. You're absolutely perfect the way you are.”  
“Shut up and focus.” He moved ahead, mounting his rifle to his shoulder. I followed, holding the bat close. It was freezing with the breath of the winter, and my hands on the base felt numb and stuck to it. We crossed the small back-lot, approaching the red backdoor to the camping store.   
Alex dropped to work the lock, whispering as he did. “Be ready, if the stores full I'm going to slam the door. Otherwise, we move quiet. Stealth is our approach here. This is new territory and we have to keep a low cover.”  
“Sure,” I said.  
“We're on the same page?” he inquired, glancing to me for affirmation. I shrugged and he sighed, pausing in dabbling with the lock to stand up. “What?”  
“Nothing. Go ahead. Do your clicky thing.”  
He tongued his cheek, waiting. He seemed to know that I couldn't pause for too long without spilling, somewhere in the nine weeks we'd come to know each other a little too well. Before him, I had never spent so much time back to back with one person. I had lived with my mother growing up, but spent most of my time avoiding her. I'd seen friends at school, but besides the infrequent sleep over, we hadn't existed much in the same space. Even my one serious relationship had never turned into a move-in deal, considering I was living with my Mom at the time. It was no wonder Alex and I were driving each other nuts. “We're very different,” is what I said, though I don't know what it had to do with picking the lock of the camp store, or my apprehension.  
“Maybe,” Alex said. I had expected him to agree full force, and looked to him with mild confusion. “Mostly.”  
“I don't know,” is what I finally said. He sighed, bracing himself. The snow was collecting on his eyelashes, leaving soft white spots. It was strangely gentle-looking, and he just was not a gentle person. His hands were rough, his body secure and athletic. I felt like he probably never stayed in one place long before the end of the world, and the nomadic lifestyle suited him still. He probably had broken a lot of windows, a lot of doors, a lot of hearts. I didn't think he'd had many friends, either. “I talk about what I feel,” I deduced. “You attack it. And I feel like, I don't know you.”  
“You don't know me.”  
“We've spent a lot of time together,” I said next, fidgeting I think Alex was looking for continuity, and getting none he grew frustrated.  
“What are you getting at?”  
“Nothing,” I rolled my eyes. “I'm just.. tired,” I decided. It wasn't an actual lie. “I get so tired, trying to figure out what's going on in your head. I wish you would just, say it, ever.”  
“Fine.” Alex shifted, leaving imprints in the snow of the blacktop. “I want you to live, that's what I want. I want you to figure out, the many many things you're doing wrong, and fucking fix them. I want you to get, how important that is, and stop making retarded decisions. And I get, that it will take time. But this learning curve is steep. And I don't know how long you can stay lucky.”   
“I'm not lucky,” I pointed out. “You're just, there.”  
“I know,” he said. “And I'm going to miss something, one day, and you have to be ready for it. Okay?”   
Alex wanted me to live. I would have to settle for that. “Okay,” I echoed.

 

The camping store wasn't enormous, a Mom and Pop type shop with tents on display and tackle pinned up high on the walls. It was musty and dark inside, and terribly creaky as we moved at a crouch around the outskirts of the store, only moving to an aisle when it had been cleared. The store was quiet, but almost maddeningly so. If we so much as coughed we could draw attention, and assuming the store was empty was just as dangerous.   
A floundering moan from the back confirmed this, as the wind jiggled the door in its frame rousing her attention. She was a skinny zombie, probably starving since the day she died. Her frame was emaciated and small, I could see the notches of her spine and the bone of her pelvis. What bothered me the most was the distended look of her intestines in her abdomen, the flesh pressed tightly against the tract. She had an her entry wound on the upper-side of her face. It had left her eye gnashed in, but her body intact besides the nightmarish thinness. She was fast, despite her handicaps, she didn't run, but her legs moved in a wide ambling gait, like she was stepping over things. I couldn't see any reason for her strangely fluid motions and my feeling of unease was building. Alex continued along the shelves, moving toward her, mindless of the terrible building panic. From the other side of the store I could see another curved shadow, craning with age. I moved forward and grabbed his shirt tail, tugging it and pointing in the direction of the curved man. He pointed to me then the skinny woman. I really didn't want to. I had an awful feeling about it, like she was an omen for something terrible. I knew it was silly, and completely without logic, but the missing eye was just too much for me. I shook my head rapidly. Alex closed his eyes, shifting his tongue in his mouth. Here wasn't the place to argue, our communication a series of winks and blinks. He pointed at himself, and then the obviously larger man. He pointed at me, hooked the bat, then pointed at the woman. “On three” he mimed. I knew if he attacked one it would draw the attention of the other. He couldn't do both and the man was heavy in his stomach, he could easily pin me. Alex was strong and built, he could take him down in a few calculated minutes. I nodded, but I did not feel anything close to okay about it. Alex approached the man, holding his hand up to signal the countdown.  
I hovered near the woman, who was inspecting the door. Her fingers were on the jam, causing it to vibrate into her fingers. Her one eye had this awful curious look to it, something I hadn't seen before in a zombie. I think it was simply the fact that it was so clear, unclouded with cataracts of mucous. My heart dropped as Alex hit three, jumping to stun the man and swinging at him. The man was too large to simply stab at.  
The woman cawed and moved forward, like a skittish spider. I brought back the bat aiming it at her head, but it didn't come forward. It felt like something was holding it back and I jerked my head to see with horror it had managed to catch between two shelves, fitting perfectly in the gap. I wrenched as she stepped forward, her fingers skating forward, her eye exploring my face. Her mouth leered open, into a terrible grin. I stepped backwards, forced to abandon my bat, reaching for the pistol just to remember it was in my pack. I had never put it back when I had woken that morning.  
I stepped backwards, esophagus bobbing, pace quickening. She was fast, her steps looming. She seemed to bob when she walked, like a bent crane. Still grinning she reached out for my face. I grabbed at the nearest thing I could between us, overturning a display of life vests in front of her with a hard crash. Her long legs simply tangled over them as she moved forward, my back hitting the circular counter at the center of the shop with a hard bang. I let out a yelp of surprise at the impact. She didn't care for my recovery time, closing the distance between us in one bound, her mouth opening as she leered like a witch in a fairytale. I shouted as I swung out my fist, making contact with the side of her head. It bobbed away then back up, before she could pivot on me again, I kicked out, hitting the mushy spot at the center of her abdomen. She flew backwards crashing into the life vests, sending them scattering. I stepped over them while she was still on her back, intent on bringing my foot down on her head but her hand snaked around my ankle, ripping me down besides her as she crawled onto her belly. Alex was shouting something as he continued to hit at the obese zombie, unable to get a clear shot to the head, I couldn't understand him over the skate of my breathing. The woman clamored on top of me her mouth open, the breath of her rot strangling out the air. I used one arm to press her away from me by the shoulder, reaching out blindly with the other for anything. My fingers wrapped around a loose wire hanger. I brought the side of it into the zombies remaining eye, twisting at the orbit. The zombie made a terrible guttural sound, it reminded me of a woman screaming, like her vocals had been destroyed. Her body writhed on mine as I mashed at her eye, her nails cutting into the skin of my shoulders– the blood flowing in a steady torrent as her mouth made for my skin, head pushing against the hanger and into the pain. It wasn't going to stop her, my hand on her shoulder wasn't enough. The hanger in her eye wasn't enough. I moved my arm off of her shoulder in a quick motion, reaching blindly behind me grappling for something, anything. as she lurched forward.  
I came up with a blunt object, catching it around something skinny at the top. I brought it down hard on her approaching head. Her hand slackened against my chest and I jerked out from underneath her, her small body falling onto its side, hands still reaching for me. I smashed the blunt object down again and again, gasping. Outside the window, the sun was rising slowly illuminating the shop. It was only when she stilled that I realized what I was holding was a large wooden duck, splattered with brain matter.  
“You okay?” Alex had moved over, looking at me uneasily. I was holding the wooden gander, covered in blood and brain matter. Her head was flat as a pancake on the floor.  
“Sh-she didn't bite me,” I stammered, standing just to collapse against the counter. My legs felt unsteady, vibrating.   
“You're okay,” Alex told me, moving closer to give my arm a squeeze. He followed my gaze to the dropped zombie, the bloodied duck laying near her head like something out of an awful game of Clue.   
“I had a nightmare about her,” I told Alex. “Looked just like her.” I licked my lips, my breath short and panicked.  
“You're okay,” he told me, stepping in front of my line of vision to take away the scene. His hands wrapped around me, carefully.   
“She almost bit me,” I whispered. “That was really close.”  
“You got to be careful,” Alex said, his chin disturbing the hair on my head. I could feel the stubble of his skin on my scalp. “This is what I'm talking about. That was too close.”  
“I fucked up,” I admitted, my words muffled in his chest. I could feel the wet spots of blood on his shirt, soaking into mine. I didn't care though, it felt good to be held and I couldn't remember the last time anyone had held me.   
I must have been a mess, for Alex not to be hemming insults my way. To be, actually comforting me. It was the closest I had come so far to getting infected, a walker on top of me, mouth at my neck. “I don't know where I messed up,” I admitted.  
“You panicked,” he disengaged to level with me, his warmth moving away and leaving my skin feeling cold again. “I could see it on your face when I pointed her out. You need to use that fear to focus, or overcome it. You can't just panic. That's how you get bitten. You don't want to end up like that, do you?”  
“No.”  
“Right,” Alex repeated. “So pay, fucking, attention.” He wrapped my leg, moving away to begin filling his pack. I sat for a while, waiting for my legs to steady enough to hold me up.

 

After our close call, Alex and I were reluctant to stop again. When we ran low on gas we stopped in a parking lot to siphon. He made me stand watch, sensing my apprehension. “Work past it,” he said as I scanned the lot. He attached a tube to the intake valve of a car, placing the end of it in his mouth, siphoning. Something was lumbering in the darkness and I steadied my bat on shaking hands.  
The shadow that emerged was elderly, but there was no sympathy for it. She was covered in something black, looking like a monster. “Don't fuck up,” Alex said, not moving from his position. “This one's easy.”  
I brought back the bat, aiming it at her peach-like head. Her skull seemed to fracture on first impact, she fell stunned to the ground. I knew better than to leave her there, straightening the bat to bring the handle down into the nest of her hair, flattening her brain and scarring the pavement.

 

By the time we were verging on Westerrose, we were both sick of the cramped little car. Alex had started talking about the van again, stiff and sore from being smashed into the back seat of a car half his size. Our usual tension was lacing the air as we went through our supplies under the glare of the sun.  
“Lures and traps,” Alex read off. “We're low on canned goods. Did you eat the last of the sardines?” He had placed what remained of our food stock on the back-end of the car, frowning.   
“Were we saving them for something?”  
“Yeah. Me,” he said with a hint of annoyance. “You know, the guy who needs energy to save your ass.” I rolled my eyes.   
“I did okay.”  
“You got fucking lucky,” he said. “You were a mess, and if that wooden duck hadn't been there you might not be. Pull it together.” He ran his fingers along the nose of his rifle as counted the bullets inside. I chaffed my teeth together, not entirely surprised that Alex's gentle manner hadn't lasted. He'd wasted his hour cap in ten intense minutes the day before, now I was lucky if he could say something to me without spitting it. He twisted, cringing as his back cracked audibly.  
“Maybe we should sleep in a house tonight,” I suggested.  
“Sure. Let's get the car stolen at the end of this goddamn thing. We can walk into Westerrose, offer them the meat on our skin, and have no way to get away. It'll be thrilling.”  
“I'm sure they're not cannibals,” I said, having nothing to base this off of besides the sound of their voice on the radio. “And one night won't kill us.”  
“Might not kill me,” he said, re-shouldering his rifle. “Think you can handle hitting up another store, or are you going to have another panic attack?”  
I flickered my eyes darkly over him. “I can handle it. You were fucking nicer to me yesterday.”  
“Yeah, well you almost died yesterday. I guess I was feeling charitable. Now I just feel like you're an idiot again.” He began piling the stuff on the back of the car into his pack. I tried not to lob a can at him as I shoved it back into our knapsack.   
“Maybe you're just on your man period,” I suggested. Alex's dark eyes passed over mine, unsmiling. I rolled my eyes, not pushing the envelope to suggest what type of supplies he might need. He was hinging on his last nerve as is.

The store we raided was mostly empty, already raided. The gun shops were the first things to get stripped down when all went out. If it wasn't the military it was any lunatic with a gun license or connection, quickly getting the fire power to man his own house and ending up just another gun-toting zombie. “Empty, empty,” scowled Alex as he moved along the shelves, knocking loose screws off one of the stands. “Fucking empty.”  
“I found a granola bar,” I said, somewhat satisfied to have found anything. Alex spun to look at me, looking somewhat murderous. “You could have half,” I offered. “Do you want the whole thing?”  
“Eve. Just shut the fuck up. Unless you can find a way to fend zombies off with Nutrigrain, then I don't give a fuck.”   
“It's Nature's Valley.” Alex spun, slamming his arm on the counter next to my leg. It was one of those not so rare times I thought he might snap and punch me in the face. “Happy New Years Eve, Alex.” His eyes reflected over mine and I wasn't so sure he was going to just walk away.   
“Just, shut up,” he said, moving away from me, his hostility following him like a warm cloud. I didn't mind the warmth. I didn't even mind the stiff tension of the air, or his balled fist. Something feral in me even liked it.  
I just didn't like the wall it left behind, like something unsaid and impossible to touch. It left me feeling glum and isolated. 

 

Alex was still in a crappy mood when night fell, sitting on the hood of the car and examining the sky-line. It was a beautiful night, but that didn't mean we could forget the reality of it. Even then, perched on the side of an unoccupied mountain range we had to be careful. Not that far off there were entire households of things that wanted us dead. My close call with death had been only a few days before, and I still hadn't quite shaken it. I don't think Alex had either, leaving him bitter and testy. The added stress of our venture to Westerrose being less than twenty four hours away wasn't helping the tension any.  
“What were you doing last New Years?” I asked, shifting on the aluminum nose of the vehicle.   
“Keg stands,” he snapped.  
I wasn't sure if it was sarcasm. He seemed to realize that and shot me a look. “I'm not a frat boy, I wasn't doing keg stands.”   
“You said it.” I shrugged. “It was hard to visualize, though.” I looked to Alex, hoping he would ask me anything but he was content to sit in the silence, sipping from a lukewarm bottle of water.  
There was only so much tension I could stand. A dance with death. Alex's building anger. A low weapon supply and it was New Years Eve. Nothing was familiar and I guess I was bumbling, looking for something to tether me. “I was at a party,” I volunteered, when he didn't ask. “My friend had set me up on some kind of blind date. It was a really awkward way to start the new year.”  
Alex didn't say anything, spinning the cap back on the bottle. “The guy wouldn't stop talking,” I said. “Which was hard, because I like to talk.”   
“Really.” I bit my bottom lip, examining the stars above. I felt kind of sick, and I wasn't sure why.   
It had something to do with midnight. It was the symbol of the New Year, sitting in a living graveyard with a guy who spit my name every time he said it. It was also a weird fluttery feeling, deep inside me that I knew would hurt when my unrealistic expectation was miserably failed.  
I had no idea why I wanted Alex to kiss me. I knew I was attracted to him. I felt it when his arm stirred within a breath of mine, like a magnet of heat. He was an attractive person, the kind I would have pined after in my life before, but never been able to see myself with. He had that whole ruggedly sexy thing going for him.  
But he was a jerk,. He was such a jerk. He called me names and made me feel like crap. And I was pretty sure that he didn't feel anything like that for me. He didn't look at me the way any of my even casual boyfriends had. He never paused and he definitely never said anything nice.   
Sometimes, there was something. Like when he was near me, and I was feeling that heat, sometimes he looked at me and I thought he felt it too. But if he did he wasn't letting on as much.   
“Alex,” I said, my voice strangely quiet.  
“What?” His voice was perpetually irritated.  
My stomach felt like a bursting knot, my nervousness a tangible creature inside of me. “Don't kiss me, because it's midnight,” I said. It felt like such a stupid and weird thing to say. Alex looked at me like I was retarded, which did not help my sinking feeling.  
“Okay,” he said, which was a bit better than him saying nothing at all. My neck felt hot, and my face felt numb but I wasn't sure why I felt so stupid. It wasn't a big deal, right?  
My watch clicked on my hand, midnight in the shape of an L. I blinked at the stars, feeling oddly pacified. Oddly nothing and at the same time I felt horrible, like the time switching over had been something to physically happen to me.   
If it was going to be the end of the world, why couldn't I spend it with someone who thought my time was worth something? Who could at least humor me with a conversation?  
I tried to find something nice in the stars, looking over the disappearing world below.   
Alex pulled at my arm, looking to my watch. I craned my neck to see what he was looking at, like there was anything interesting about the time, or the date, or what used to constitute a holiday. It was one minute past midnight of the New Year.  
He didn't say anything, his hand cupping my jaw and directing my head to the side. His kiss was as intense as was, his mouth breaking into mine like a floodgate. My hands found his face, the scratch of stubble on his chin scraping my face as his hands found the back of my hair, tugging hard. I found my nails sinking into his skin as he reeled me in, his tongue like a battering ram, winding across the expanse of my mouth with a shiver. My breath was a cold whisper, something soft an audible. He pulled tighter still, the kiss hard and suffocating. I could feel myself shaking, from the cold and more than that, the intensity that wove through my body like a contraction.   
When it ended my breaths were uneven, his own a short bull-like exhale. I ran my fingers across my lips, stunned as he gazed into the woods, waiting for something to breach the trees. The silence between us settled like a breeze, shifting loftily through the leaves. I didn't want to break it, for once.  
One past Midnight, I thought, feeling almost warm.


	4. Chapter 4

Westerrose was a large compound, locked in by a chain-link fence. At the top of the fences was a length of barbed wire, coiled like a spring. It reminded me of the sitting yard of a prison, giving off a foreboding vibe, however sensible it was. 

Alex eyes were running over the buildings, his jaw stiff. I looked over the Westerrose with a similar feeling of unease. A large building took up most of the front. We had to get out of the car to squint between the chain-links and the town itself. “I think it was a Museum?” I said finally, the architecture was familiar. There was the large Colosseum like building, then a courtyard and several smaller buildings. Administrations, Information, First Aid, there was a shed probably for weapons, and at the center of the courtyard a large pebble fountain.  
“I don't see anybody,” he said from his place between the trees. I peered forward, leaning on my toes for a better view. It had looked like there was someone by the fountain, and for a fleeting second I thought I was looking at a seven foot tall zombie, just to realize it was a golden statue of a past president.  
“We're here, aren't we?” I was tired of traveling with nowhere to go but I knew this place wasn't even ranking, it looked empty.  
“Alright,” Alex conceded. “Let's hide the car and walk up. At least then we have an idea of how we're getting out of here when it goes to shit.”  
“That's comforting.” We walked back to the car in relative silence, scanning the trees for the interruptions of the walking dead. Across the chain-link, almost diagonal to us, I could see a choir-sized clump of zombies, pawing at the gate. There must have been noise coming from the compound, or light, drawing them in to rip at the fence.  
Either way, there seemed to be nothing now.

Alex and I hid the car, and some of the food from our packs. He seemed to hesitate, glossing over our weapons. I could understand his hesitations. We didn't want to go in with everything we had; we also didn't want to go in with nothing to defend ourselves.  
It was a large compound though. If we walked in and they shot us, that was it. It was an oddly powerless feeling.  
Alex decided on leaving the baseball bat, after a small internal war. He didn't share the dialogue with me and his decision didn't feel comforting. “I don't know, all I'll have is the pistol,” I said.  
“Better than nothing,” he responded. “Try to remember to keep it concealed.”  
“They're going to pat us down and take it. Let's leave the pistol and take the bat.”  
I expected him to argue but I guess it wasn't a decision he was dead set on. He popped the trunk again, handing me the bat and pulling the pistol from the pocket of my pack himself in an agitated flourish. He tossed it into the trunk, closing it with a muffled thump.  
I regretted my decision, but didn't say it. It didn't seem like there was a right decision. We were going in with nothing, for nothing. We had no idea what to expect and yet both of us were willing to make this attempt. It said a lot for our state of vulnerability, and something else for our hope. Did Alex have the same fears? Was he as sick of the open empty world as I was? To be making this decisions was to put blinders on. We had nothing, but we didn't have any other choices. My uncertainty only spread as we approached the compound, a large chain-link fence with the word Westerrose written on a chiseled sign. It was expert craftsmanship, here at the end.  
Alongside it was another sign, a quote or something. “Then You will Know the Truth and the Truth will set you free”  
“That's very choice capitalization,” I said. Alex had shut down vocally, concentrating on his budding anxieties. I was excited about the prospect but another part of me wanted him to stop this whole thing, say he was out and I would be forced to opt out too. There was a crack in the woods to our side and we both stopped. He levied his hunting knife but nothing came of it. We paused, then continued on, eyes beseeching the terrain.

xxx  
'RING BELL' said the sign at the front of the chain-link. I was the one to step forward to do as much, Alex surveying the surrounding land, committing the landscape to memory. I knew I would never differentiate one naked patch of trees from the other. The path to where we were was written in the flurries of snow and boot imprints more than anything else.  
The guard who came forward wore a gun, and a large army helmet. Most of his body was done up in armor, reminding me of a camouflaged knight. He shifted his weapon in his hands. “Welcome to Westerrose,” he read. “We are the haven in the hellfire.”

xxx  
Lieutenant Cobbs chewed gum as he spoke, leading the way to Screening. His jaw made a terrible clicking sound with every slap of the gum, he was louder than a cow chewing cud. As he led us, another guard stepped behind us and Cobbs reminded for the third time, “Remember, keep your weapons in your packs.”  
“Right,” said Alex, again.  
“Where are you two coming from?” Cobbs asked, his voice tinted with a southern accent between the gnashing of his teeth on the gum.  
“West Virginia,” I supplied when Alex didn't answer.  
“I think you'll like it here. We've all suffered a great deal. They can be stiff with the rules, but at the End of Times order is important.”  
My eyes skated suspiciously over Cobb's back. Things were beginning to feel weird, and we were only just through the gate. Alex looked impassive, but I could read his stormy silence well – his alarms were going off.  
Cobbs led us into the Administration Building for screening. I could hear the main office, occupied by someone softly crying. Another woman was waiting on a bench in the hall, clutching her knees. She was wearing a floor length skirt that danced all the way around her feet, looking blushed and afraid. When she saw us, her anxieties increased and she threw a look to the guard.  
“They seem okay,” he relented, with somewhat of a twitch in his tone. “This is Melinda. Meli, this is Alex and Eve.”  
“Eve,” Melinda repeated, looking to me. Her blue eyes looked faint and strange. “Like Adam and Eve.”  
“Except, it's Alex,” I said quietly. She had lost a lot of color in her face saying my name.  
“You got it from here,” said Cobbs, disappearing from the Admin building to man the outside. I could hear the thunk of his gun leaning up against the building.  
Alex glanced around then dropped to a seat on the bench, I smiled at Melinda. “Do you go by Meli?”  
“Well, I didn't before,” she said, taken off guard. “Now I do.” She looked uneasy, her eyes skating about the room.  
“Have you been here awhile?” I folded my arms across myself, running my hands together to pry free some warmth. “You look really good, like you haven't been outside much.”  
She looked nervous, her eyes pausing in their frenetic darting about to settle on mine. Something about them even still didn't seem to really focus. “I've been here for as long as I can remember.” Her voice was cracking, her eyes wet and red. It wasn't a large leap to assume there was something going on in her head.  
“You seem upset.” I licked my lips. “Are you alright?” She hesitated and I reached forward, from my synthetic warmth to her own. I squeezed her wrist gently, she twitched under the gesture but her body seemed to relax somewhat as she sank into the wall. “You can trust me.”  
“I've been ungodly,” she whispered now, her eyes filling up. Her voice was quiet with shame. “They found me with … a soldier. They're angry with me.”  
“I'm sure they will forgive you.”  
“They can't forgive me if God won't.” She looked to my face, reaching forward to touch my hand now. “Are you a sign, Eve? Will God forgive me?”  
“God forgives you,” I told her, my heart skipping a beat nervously. I could feel Alex watching.  
The tears spilled freely from her eyes and she smiled through them. It could have been beautiful, but it was scary instead. “They try to keep us separate,” she whispered. “The men and the women, until you're married. But the soldiers are everywhere..” She shook her head. “That's why I'm here, without a gun. It is God's Test for me.”  
I paused, trying to make sense of what she was saying. “You're taking incoming survivors?”  
“I stay with them their first night,” she said. “It is punishment by God. I deserve it.”  
I wanted to tell her she didn't, but I didn't want to lose my precarious position as Vessel of God. I also didn't want to derail the conversation, trying to garner as much information as I could. I'd been here less than an hour and already had a basket of red flags. The gun thumped against the outside as the Guard adjusted his position. I turned under the pretense of examining the sound as I switched my ring from my pointer to my ring finger. Alex watched, betraying nothing.

The door to the office opened, a red-faced woman emerging, a Reverend just behind her folding open the door. Meli looked to him, seeking instruction. “Dana has a small wound on her hip,” said the preacher. All of our eyes traveled to the entry wound. The fabric was ripped, the skin bloody below. “She says she was caught in the woods. I'm sure it's just a few scratches.” I could see the grizzled teeth marks from across the hall. “You will lock yourself in Quarantine with her. Tell Cobbs.”  
He turned from the conversation, smiling pleasantly as if it hadn't taken place. “You two can join me.” His lips were pinned up, the corners hooked into a painted smile.  
We followed him into his little office.  
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx  
The Reverend settled behind his desk, folding his hands over each other. Behind him was a book case, and standing at either end like statues a man and woman in black suits appropriate to their gender. They stared vapidly, like ushers at the far wall. It gave the Reverend a strangely royal appearance.  
I hadn't expected him to say anything about the exchange, but still smiling he gave a vague excuse. “We can never be too careful.”  
I nodded my understanding, Alex stared but said nothing.  
“My name is Reverend Ephesian. I am the voice of reason here at Westerrose. I litigate, calm the masses, indenture the survivors and most importantly lead the church.”  
“I'm Alex. This is Eve.”  
“Eve,” The Reverend repeated, like Meli had. “I have an Adam and Eden. Have you two been in the outside world since the beginning?”  
“Yes,” Alex responded for us.  
“And, you've never joined a group before?” The question was aimed mainly at Alex. “There are several undesirable groups out there, led by men, and sinners.”  
“It's been just us from the start,” I said.  
The Reverend was looking to Alex still, his smile a little fractured. “I hate to presume, but, you don't seem like a Godly Man, Alex.”  
He was basing this on nothing but first impressions. Even if Alex was godly, it wouldn't help him much if the Reverend was looking for a type. I remembered when I had first met Alex. He sweated defiance. He held himself in a combative way. It was the impression of his eyes and unsmiling mouth. It was almost ironic, he was always telling me to pay attention and he couldn't follow the social cues that would keep us from being alienated. I broached the topic before Alex could.  
“We weren't especially active in the church, before. It took the End of Times for us to realize our wrongdoing, and correct them.” I dropped my eyes in apology, just to connect them with the Reverend's, trying to wear my shame. “I am sure it was a wake up call to many people, and we regret losing sight of the big picture in the Everyday. We thank God everyday since for this opportunity to set things right before the End. It's why we're here now.” The Reverend's eyes flickered over me, I wondered if he believed me. I had never been much of an actor, but I wasn't very threatening.  
“You two are married?”  
“Of course,” I said. His eyes flitted between us. Even at the end, Alex and I were mismatched.  
“You're very young.”  
I know we didn't seem in love. I don't think Alex could ever seem in love.  
“Even if I fell away from religion I still had strong morals. Alex respected that, and we were married.”  
My face burned, and it was no measure of acting. The Reverend relented, nodding to himself. This was a scenario that made sense for two stupid young adults, ruled by hormones and an inkling of faith.  
“No open wounds?”  
“None,” I answered. Alex was quiet, for once, somehow his logic prevailing over his temper. Even he had to realize that my presence was softer than his, no matter how thick his head was.  
“And what do you bring to the table?” The Reverend crossed his hands over each other. “There are many God Fearing people, these days Eve. It takes resources to keep a group alive. What is it the two of you have to offer us?”  
“Alex is a deliberate fighter,” I said, as if I had prepared for this. I suppose mentally I had, in the quick three minute spurt between Meli confirming my suspicions and us entering the Reverend's office.  
“And, where did you learn that Alex?” The Reverend's tone was telling.  
“My Uncle,” said Alex. As far as I knew, it wasn't a lie. “He hunted. I'd stay with him for a season and we'd camp out, cook, bring down deer. Some fishing.”  
“We brought fishing rods. And, If it weren't for him, I wouldn't be here,” I added. It felt like I was trying to sell Alex. I suppose I was. “He has impeccable aim and he can take down a Walker faster than anyone I know.”  
“A Walker,” the Reverend repeated, sound amused. “We call them Demons, here. A Walker is just demoralizing slang, I think it takes away from the inherent threat.”  
“I don't know how I couldn't have connected those thoughts,” I pretended to look bothered, it wasn't much of a feign – I was bothered.  
“That's what I'm here for Eve. To help the righteous see the world the way it is in God's eye,” he delivered looking between us. If we were a challenge, it was better than being a threat. “And yourself, Eve, what do you bring to the table?”  
I pause for all of a second before I'm rambling. “I was a Psychology student,” I delivered, my go-to. I wasn't sure exactly how it fit here, but I worked fast to connect it with what little I knew so far. “I can help with Screening. I can tell if someone has jumbled thoughts, or might be a threat.”  
The Reverend's eyes passed over Alex, then back to me. I didn't lose the gesture, sitting non-reactive in my chair, spine straight.  
“Do you recognize the signs of infection?”  
I wondered what he was talking about. All it took was pointing out a pair of jaw marks on a walking corpse. “Yes,” I said, not looking for clarification.  
The Reverend seemed somewhat satisfied, leaning back in his chair. “I would be happy to assist in your religious re-awakening. Of course, the formalities must be observed first. Esther will see to you, Eve. Adam, you will see to Alex.”  
The Reverend stood then, brushing hair from his forehead. Adam stepped forward, indicating for Alex to follow. He stood, casting an unreadable look in my direction. I hoped he hadn't been trying to communicate anything, as Adam stole him from the room. 

xxx  
Alex  
Adam's eyes inspected over the expanse of scars on my back as I stripped, leaving me terse and agitated. I was already off-kilter, thinking hard about how Eve and I were going to get out of here with our necks still attached.  
It was a floodgate of information, forced in all at once. It was one negative thing after the other. I had to thank God for the small favor of not being shot on sight by these people, something I really should be assigning Eve the credit for.  
“These scars are old,” said Adam, prodding at one of the lash marks near my spine.  
“That's why they're scars.” I hoped they would eject the two of us on sight. It wouldn't be that simple, I knew that if we walked away they would put a bullet in the back of our head. If I had a base to protect, that would be my line of thinking. We knew their headquarters, we were heathens, we couldn't simply turn away. The cultists didn't like to let go before, this was no different.  
I knew we were trapped behind the chain-link and barbed wire, not protected.  
Something in me was surprised, and I wished I could stifle it. I was weary and exhausted from traveling, from fighting. I had wanted to just sit, for a little while. Even if the compound had been a mess, had fallen in a matter of weeks – it still would have been a reprieve. Instead I'd banged head-long into the type of people I'd seen going down praying, screaming out for God as they were devoured alive. I'd found the few that had slipped through the cracks.  
Adam's eyes skated over the ink on my hip-bone, curiously. I wonder if he recognized it.  
xxx  
Our weapons and packs were taken almost immediately, by Cobbs as we entered Quarantine. Quarantine was the bottom wing of the History Museum, a gallery turned into Undead Detection zone. It was a small room, an exhibit dedicated to various weapons used by Native Americans. There were several spears and arrow heads, still snug behind the glass. They were old weapons, useless with age or made synthetic, painted to look faint and antique. “You'll be here,” said Cobbs, stopping short and pointing me into the miniature room. “Eve, you're down the hall.”  
“We have to be separated?” I spun to face Cobbs. “That doesn't make any sense. We were out there together-.”  
“It's just procedure,” he cut in, shrugging apologetic. “One night, since you both are pretty clear skinned. They may keep her a few extra hours for the scrapes on her ankle, but that's it.” Eve behind him shook her head at me, shaking off my concerns.  
He pointed with his gun into the room, casting a long look down the hall towards whoever would be guarding me. “You coming Fern?”  
'Don't push it' she mouthed. I could see her thoughts tumbling around in her head. She wasn't nearly as confident as she was pretending to be, but I admired her resolve. “I'll see you soon,” I told her, an edge to my voice to show that I was swearing by it. She nodded, tried to force a smile. Fern finally approached, looking terrified. She was tall for her age, she still wasn't much bigger than Eve, with wild red hair and large green eyes. She had to be one of the youngest people I had seen since the beginning, somewhere around fourteen.  
“You're my guard?” I stepped back into the room and away from Eve as Cobbs shut the door, clicking the lock to seal us in. She nodded, her eyes as large as quarters.  
I got it pretty quick. I'd been looked at like that before. She'd probably been 'on guard' for a solid length of time, watching survivor's, waiting for them to turn and pin her. She didn't even have a gun on her, and was probably just as afraid of the survivor as the demon they became.  
I moved across the room, dropping into the far corner to give her some space. She stared after me, blinking away just as quickly but not moving from the door. As if it offered her any comfort. There was no way she could open it, with it locked from the outside.  
I wondered if I could. I wondered if she would let me.  
But there was another guard in the hall, and even if Fern was too afraid to stop me, the other would shoot me before I could get into Eve's room. I was resigned to waiting, leaving a terrible building agitation in my head. I rubbed at my temples.  
“You have a headache,” she said, her voice squeaking.  
“I'm not bitten,” I told her, leveling my head. “And I'm not a rapist, either. Or a murderer. Not unless I have to kill something. How old are you?”  
“Fourteen,” she said, putting my guess spot on.  
“And why, do they have a fourteen year old, defenseless, girl guarding a man twice her size?”  
It probably wasn't the most comforting thing to say. She froze.  
“I'm not going to hurt you,” I repeated. “I'm not even going to move from this spot, right here, okay? I'm just trying to understand it.” She still didn't so much as twitch. I tongued my cheek, irritably. There was a gulf of silence, in which she stood as still as a tree in a breeze, shaking occasionally.  
“I had a little brother, when this all went down. Did you have anyone?” I said, in the hopes of being humanizing. Her eyes, which had been darting around the room moved back over to me.  
“Mom,” she said. “Dad. Two dogs.”  
“Now, who do you have?”  
“The Covenant of God,” she said, as if it had been recited. I scraped at the stubble on my face, thinking.  
“That sounds hard. I know it's hard, because I went through it. The end of times, and I had a friend. Covenant doesn't sound so friendly.”  
Fern shifted, licking her cracked lips. “We don't speak badly about the Covenant,” she said now, her voice was uneasy.  
“I won't tell if you won't,” I said, baiting. She shook her head in the negative, beginning to pace the small quarters. “Why are you here?” I asked her again. “What did you do?”  
She scraped her hair back from her ear, unwilling to answer. “Okay,” I said into the open silence. She wasn't like Eve, struggling to fill it with anything. “Did you see that girl I was with? Eve?”  
“Yes,” she said, her voice was almost a whisper. She stopped pacing, wringing her hands together instead. Her jittery mannerisms made me want to snap, but I tried to hold it together.  
“You think she's okay?”  
Fern's eyes skated over mine. “She's okay. They wouldn't- She's fine.” Her voice was soft. She paused biting her lip. “...I know she's not your wife. You don't have a ring.”  
“Maybe I lost it, or pawned it.”  
Fern hesitated then shook her head. “She didn't cry. When we separate the families for Quarantine, they always cried. Usually the women, sometimes the men.”  
“She doesn't cry,” I told Fern. “We hold it together.” I hadn't seen Eve cry before. I'd seen her come close, under the emotional collapse of some out of hand fight. She didn't cry when she almost died. She came closest when I had hurt her. “You have to be strong out there,” I told her.  
“You have to be strong in here too,” she said, twisting her fingers together.  
“How?” I asked, as if I couldn't tell simply from the looks of the place.  
“They're strict. There's rules. Women can't wear pants unless they're on guard. They can't go hunting. We have to tend the crops. Men do the hunting. They get the first food.”  
“That's stupid. How are you supposed to survive if they won't let you learn any of it?”  
“They don't care,” she shrugged. “It's about what they want, not what's good.” She bit her lower lip. “It's not...” She stopped herself.  
“It's not what?”  
She shook her head, pushing the curls of her red afro away from her face. “Fair?” I pressed.  
“No,” she sighed. “I don't think it's what God would want. God wouldn't test me, by locking me in a room with someone waiting to Turn.”  
“He's not much of a God, if he did. I think they have a word, for someone who tortures like that. Don't they? Big red guy, slimming pitchfork?”  
“Yeah,” she said. “Reverend Ephesian.”  
I laughed, surprised. The sound made her jump and her eyes wandered over mine uncertain. Her lips twitched like she might smile, but she caught it before it could flex across her features.  
“She's not my wife,” I confided, hoping Fern wouldn't turn on me. “She's a friend.”  
“Did you know her before?”  
“No.” I thought back to when I had first met Eve, by the train tracks. She'd been aiming a rifle at one bumbling walker. She'd grown in a lot of ways since then, her steady head in the face of this trap was one of them. She was still a fuck-up though, and I hadn't come close to getting over her near-death experience.  
“You guys take care of each other?” she asked now, I could tell the question meant something to her.  
“We do.” I shifted to examine the girl, she was looking more interested than afraid now. “I would be pretty miserable without her. Just don't tell her.”  
Fern half-smiled, nodding her agreement to keep my secret.

 

xxx  
Eve

My night was spent sitting up against a plastic exhibit, the glazed painted eyes of half-crouched neanderthal's surrounding me. My guard had a problem with me laying down, a problem with me breathing. She clicked if I paced and every time I tried to speak she'd sigh loudly and start reading her bible out loud. I stopped trying to talk, planning on staying awake the night. She made me uneasy, the entire thing made me uneasy which made it impossible to sleep.  
I was so worried about Alex. I hadn't liked how the Reverend looked at him, the way his eyes skimmed over him. Alex had seemed ungodly, but I was probably more volatile about the religion thing than either of us. It was probably the one category of outright aggression I had Alex beat on. But he was a man, with a dark look in his eye and a way of carrying himself that made people want to put a gun to his face. I worried that while I held a staring contest with the bearded, leopard-skirt wearing cave-man that Alex would be put down with a solitary gun shot and I would be alone.  
He'd always meant something to me, a lack of loneliness, I think at first. From there it had begun to flex and change, and I'd started to care about him. I couldn't be ambivalent about it anymore when his mouth had snapped on mine, it was like the ugliest love story ever. I didn't love Alex. I could barely stand within a foot of him without fighting him. But that intensity left its mark and I was drawn to picking on him, fighting with him, craving that alive feeling he gave me.  
It was easy to straggle through the apocalypse, bent out of shape by the endless stream of undying. Alex kept my spine unbent, my mind straight and clear. I would prove him wrong because I was better than he said, and I wanted to win our most recent fight. It left a buzz in my step that held my attention, something I might not have had if he was just easy to be around.  
I pushed the hair from my face, blinking heavily as I gazed at the cave man. The guard was snoozing in the center of the hall, laying back with her neck exposed skyward. I thought about how very unfunny it would be if I woke her by sinking my teeth into her throat – as a joke.  
The thought prompted a snicker and she bolted upright, looking to me suspiciously.  
xxx  
It was a few hours into afternoon when they finally let me out. Alex was already gone, he'd been wound free upon admission and hadn't had quite as lengthy a sit in as me. I wasn't allowed to look for him, led from Quarantine up a roundabout of stairs into a large, arch-heavy room by the bible toting woman. She was rummaging around, looking for a skirt for me because my jeans were indecent.  
While she rummaged I moved to the window, examining the chain-link. There was quite a build of zombies, poking at the fence. I could see miniature figures of men pegging them with bullets, the sound tainting the air like a spirited hiss. “Where's Alex?” I asked, turning to confront her. She was holding out a lengthy hoop skirt, scowling at my size and throwing it back in the closet.  
“Let's focus on you,” she said with some irritation, finding an olive green skirt that wouldn't trail beneath my feet. “You'll need a blouse.” She found something manilla and plain, wildly modest. “Here.” She pushed the clothes over, grasping them as if afraid I might taint her with my dirt.  
There was a soft humming to the museum, and all at once the lights flickered on. I looked to her curiosity. “Sunset, lights come on,” she filled in. “Have a seat. You can dress after.”  
I dropped onto one of the benches that littered the hall. They were all awkwardly central, leaving me needing to turn around completely when the woman who had guarded me passed the room. “I'm Posy,” she introduced, at long last.  
“Eve,” I reminded her.  
“Have you ever taken drugs?” She looks me over, waiting for a tell.  
“No.”  
“What about drinking?”  
“Yes,” I tell her. “Not a lot. Just a little. I know it's frowned upon. I would never drink now.”  
“Have you lied?”  
“Everyone lies,” I admit. “But I try to be an honest person.”  
She nods, sucking in her bottom lip. “Your room is in the Presidential Hall. Dinner's in an hour, and prayer. Be prepared and dressed.”

xxx  
Alex  
“Here.” Adam thrust a cup into my hands, winding his fingers around a goblet of his own. The clothes I had been comfortable in had been exchanged for church wear. Now, I was holding a small goblet of wine and several crackers. I vaguely remembered it all from some life well before. A little boy in a church suit.  
“What is this?”  
“Blood of Christ,” said Adam. He tipped back his own cup.  
“I'm not thirsty.”  
“It's part of initiation,” Adam said. “Just drink it.”  
I tipped it back, taking a sip. It didn't taste any different from wine. “Sit down.” Adam's voice was not a suggestion, he looked towards one of the chairs in the small office. I dropped into the rolling chair looking back to him, waiting. “You ever do drugs?”  
“No.”  
“What about drinking?”  
“No,” I repeat. “Never drank.”  
Adam stares at me, waiting for a tell. I look back impassive.  
“What about lying?”  
“No.”  
“You've never lied?”  
“Never had to,” I tell Adam.  
He nods, draining his wine. He watches me finish my own in silence.

 

xxx  
Eve  
I made my way to the wing on guesswork, passing people who moved around me as if I weren't there. They kept their heads bent to avoid acknowledging me. One girl glanced up, her sad eyes skating over mine before she ducked back down, disappearing around the bend. I passed several columns, roped off exhibits. I could hear people chatting quietly, occupying galleries, spread out across the floor on a variety of mats.  
The Presidential Wing was down a long set of stairs. I was greeted by stagnant silence, and two strange wax figures of Washington and Reagan. A thin hallway showed roped off furniture, a couch our founders had sat on, some famous bench from some courtyard. A red velvet rope kept the furniture back, protected from any less than famous pants – or ankle-length skirts in this case. “Alex?” I called, keeping my voice low.  
Alex stepped from outside a column, scowling. I couldn't help but grin, an automatic reaction to Alex in a flannel shirt and dress pants. “Nice pajamas,” I told him. “I'm glad to see you haven't been murdered yet.”  
“Lower your voice,” he said, rolling his eyes as he closed the distance between us. I moved away from the stairs.  
“No one else is down here, right?”  
“Security cameras might work. I'm sure they'd waste some energy keeping their masses in order,” he said, his voice dropping to a whisper.  
“Don't you think it's kind of suspicious your whispering in my ear?”  
“Maybe I'm being sinful,” he drawled, tucking a piece of hair behind my ear. My skin felt warm at his touch. I ignored the sensation, trying to focus on our present situation over the flash of heat.  
“What are we going to do? Obviously, this isn't a good fit for us. Or anyone sane.” Alex stepped back to drop onto the couch, unclipping the velvet rope. I dropped besides him, trying not to eye the camera directly.  
“But I thought you were floundering but faithful?” he pressed. I leaned in to hear him, rolling my own eyes. The air around him was fragrant, weirdly sweet. “Married for morality.”  
“You know I was acting,” I said, searching his face. He didn't look too anxious.  
“You're not a terrible liar,” he said, which was almost a compliment. “You did a good job of manipulating Meli, and the Rev. Better than me.”  
“Is that your idea of a compliment?” I frowned. “Aren't you worried?”  
“Sure,” he said. “We're surrounded by guards, stuck with a bunch of religious freaks.” The way he spoke was oddly toneless.  
“Did you take something?”  
“They may have slipped me something,” he admitted. I closed my eyes, exhaling heavily. “Don't be upset. I might as well feel good one of my last nights on earth. They don't like me very much. I don't have a very biblical name, or do I?”  
Alex was rambling. I was so used to his aggressive hold on the situation that anything but was off-putting, especially with him being drugged. “Alex, we need to figure something out. Or, this could get bad..”  
“Yeah.” He leaned back into the couch closing his eyes. I bit my bottom lip, trying to think clearly but I was totally stuck. I shook his shoulder gently.  
“Do you know where our weapons are?” I shook him harder when he didn't respond. He didn't even look annoyed, which was unsettling. “I need you to click on. This is important.”  
“No idea. Stop worrying, I'm sure we can figure it out.” He closed his eyes. The museum was quiet with sleep, my head racing, with nothing but the hum of the generator for company.  
I couldn't get Alex to wake up for the dinner and mass. I told him it would look bad but he wouldn't budge. He didn't even seem fully awake, deflecting me, and it wasn't as if I could pull him all the way there.  
The cafeteria area was small, and crowded with people. There wasn't an enormous amount of people, but it was more people than I had seen since The End. It was about forty individuals, varying in age from eleven to somewhere in their 70's. The Reverend led the prayer, standing at the front of the room and spending an agonizing length of time discussing religion.  
The food we were served was warm though, real fish. I was glad to eat it, and sad Alex had to miss it. I concealed some in a napkin, tucking it in the upper fold of my skirt.  
A girl with reddish hair seemed to notice. I recognized her as Alex's guard, and winked. She shifted her eyes elsewhere, looking somewhat sad.

xxx  
Alex ate the fish mechanically, passing out on the velvet couch, numb to anything I said. I wondered how much they had given him, concerned they were just going to kill him in his sleep. Maybe it would have been easier for them, but it would have proven mighty suspicious.  
Alex woke in the morning, looking hazy, shaking me awake. He was pacing, as if the sedative had simply deferred his energy to later. His hands shook as he walked the length of the room again and again. “They drugged me,” he sneered furiously. “I can't believe they drugged me.”  
“Did you, do something?” I asked from my place on the couch, still half-asleep. I hadn't slept at all the night before, and the clutch of anxious hours hadn't done me much good. I'd kept waking to check that Alex was still breathing, trying to figure out what I should do and being lost.  
“Yeah, I was a strong young male.” He stopped pacing in a bound. His eyes an electrifying green, which was strange since they usually went dark when he was pissed. “Whose side are you on?”  
“What?” I squeaked. “I'm just trying to make sure that we're keeping a low cover.”  
“Don't be naïve,” snapped Alex. “They didn't like me the moment I set foot in here. It didn't help when I stripped and Adam saw my tattoo.”  
“What tattoo?”  
Alex moved to unbutton his shirt instead of just telling me. On his hip bone it said Leviticus 19:28 in Gothic black ink. “What's that mean?” I asked, somewhat lost. I hadn't expected Alex to just rip off his shirt and felt kind of hot in my face.  
“Something about not getting a tattoo because it's against god. I don't really remember much, I was sixteen when I got it.” He moved to re-button his shirt, his shaking hands making that a task. “Fucking sons of bitches,” he scowled. I stood up, pulling the shirt tail out of his hand to button it for him. He sighed as if annoyed but stilled, my fingers brushing against his skin as I forced the buttons through the slits of fabric. “And I know I failed there stupid test.”  
“What do we do?” I asked seriously, moving to the third button.  
“Lay low,” he suggested. “Find out where our weapons are. Get the fuck out of here.”  
I stepped back, Alex's shirt now fully buttoned. He was the angriest man in flannel I had ever seen. “I guess we should have watched more.”  
“I guess so,” he sniffed, shaking his head. I tongued my cheek, too worried to pick a fight with him. “I'll find out where the guns are. We'll talk about a plan of attack tonight when we have some information.”  
“Don't be obvious,” I told him. “Can you handle being subtle?”  
“Are you, serious right now?” He examined my face, the contours of his own flattened with astonishment.  
“I meant with people Alex, we all know you know how to be stealthy but you tend to let your anger get the best of you. I don't think you can pull off good Christian boy.”  
“Then you find out where the guns are, since you're so good at this.” There was a sound on the stairs and we both twisted to attention, looking almost suspect.  
I dropped my hands from Alex's shirt hastily.  
“It's time for mass,” said Cobbs. “Rev asked me personally to escort you two. I heard you missed it last night.”  
“He wasn't feeling well,” I said.  
“Yeah, couldn't quite wake myself up,” he snapped, pinning the subtlety thing.  
“Night Mass is no small thing. You never know when will be your last time going to bed, ya know?” He turned his back on us, skating up the stairs. I saw Alex's eyes flicker to his gun, contemplating over-powering him, the seeds of a plan working somewhere in his brain.  
I touched his arm, shaking my head. It wasn't time, he had to know that. Everyone was awake, we would be surrounded in minutes. He shook me off, following after Cobbs.

xxx  
Reverend Ephesian spoke throughout breakfast about what it meant to be godly, and the trials in store for each of us at the End of Times. “Now is the time to resist temptation!” He swore, bounding along the landing of the stairs like a platform. His voice was a boom. “Your holiness is being tested and God selects only the most righteous. Be righteous. Be pure. Turn your back on the temptation of the Devil.”  
“Little late for that,” murmured Alex, under his breath.  
“Nothing pure about kicking the clot out of zombies,” I muttered, under my breath.  
“A time of great trial has come. Be on God's side, he's on yours,” Ephesian finished, finally. I glanced into the dredges of my cream of wheat, it was half-water.  
The woman who had helped me dress, Posy, came to collect me after a cabinet-friendly breakfast and breathless mass. “You're to come with me to the gardens,” she explained. “We're going to show you some farm work. Your husband is off to scavenge.”  
“I can't scavenge?”  
“Of course not,” sniffed Posy. “We have to go.”  
I looked to Alex uneasily, he didn't look too content about us being split up either. “I'll see you,” he swore.  
“Of course,” I said, shifting out of my seat to follow Posy.

xxx  
The gardens were carefully manicured, tended to by five women, while the remained busied themselves with livestock. There was a small pen with three pigs, and a chicken coop with two laying hens but no rooster. “We couldn't keep a male,” admitted Posy. “They attracted too much attention. We had one for a bit but had to throw him over the fence. Kept making a racket of things.”  
I wondered what it would feel like, to be singing to the sun, then cast over the fence to the army of the undead. There was a small collection of walkers at the chain-link, their fingers pressed through the holes, hoping to reach us. “Demons,” snipped Posy, looking to them with disgust. “Now never mind them, you're gonna be weeding.” After a brief demonstration I was left to my own devices, the sun raising higher and higher in the sky.  
Hours later my hands were numb with cold, the plants didn't look much different and the sun was sinking again.I was dehydrated by the time one of the mousy blonde women brought water, and it was small individual glasses at that. I kept casting long looks to the building, wondering where Alex was and if he was alright while I was weeding. Part of me wanted to charge in blindly, demanding to know my husband was okay, but I didn't know what to do. I couldn't arouse suspicion if nothing had happened yet. If Alex wanted to go through with overpowering Cobbs, we could do it that very night.

I scanned the courtyard but all I saw were women, and the fountain at the center of the square. I lifted my eyes to the building again, suddenly catching someone's eye.  
A red head was standing in the arch of the building, looking nervously towards me. Her eyes didn't look glazed, though they held a great deal of fear. She shifted when I looked at her, leveling her chin but stepping back.  
Posy was busy in conversation with a blonde woman, shaking her head as she bent to collect a string of grape tomatoes. I walked in a quick pace across the courtyard, approaching the girl who was trying to get my attention.  
She licked her lips as she disappeared down the hall, I followed, my feet calling after me. When we rounded the corner it was into an alcove designed to look like the inside of an icy cave. A giant diagram of a mammoth covered the wall, it's tusks ending at the top of her head. “You're Eve, right?” she said.  
“I'm Eve,” I said quickly, my pulse picking up. “Where's Alex?”

 

xxx  
Alex  
The hunting party was a sectional of men, mostly older than me. There was one familiar face- Adam, and three older men including the Reverend himself. There was a no-nonsense look about them, and I knew what they were collecting me for underneath the guise of their words. “You said you're a good hunter,” said the Reverend, offering a half smile. “I thought we'd go for a hunt.”  
“Where's Eve?”  
“She's fine. Gardening, I'm sure.” He smiled cheerlessly, I inspected his face. If I ran they would shoot me point blank. I pretended to move along with the ruse, following as the four men congregated around me, a mass of weapon-touting bodies.  
“What about my gun?”  
“We'll give it to you when we're closer,” said the Reverend, falling into step alongside me. My pulse was quickening as we walked, my stomach tightening like a fist. All around us the chain-link kept me sequestered like a rogue animal. We were really moving past the fence? I imagined that anything closer would be too close to the base to avoid someone overseeing what they were about to do to me.  
I didn't have my dagger. I didn't have my pack, or my rifle, or even Eve's bat. Everything had been stripped of us, we'd been under lock and key since our arrival, and now I was being walked to my execution.  
What could I do? I wasn't ready to accept death. I had things I wanted to do before I went. I wasn't even sure exactly what they were, but even with the world faltering I had things I wanted to see. I knew I didn't want that to be the last time I saw Eve, the idea filled me with an awful pang. And if I was going to be killed, I did not want it to be at the hands of religious cultists. If I was going down I'd be bringing down as many of them as I could. I forced Eve out of mind, trying to focus on what I could do. Around me, their footsteps moved in near unity, keeping me in the center. I hadn't thought this would come so soon, thinking they would feign accepting me into their community at the very least, but this was obviously an execution party. They knew better than to leave me a section of space to come up with a plan in.  
“Are you familiar with Psalm 46?” The Reverend asked, as we approached the chain-link. The two men standing guard stepped back, the gate opening to the surrounding forest. I didn't give him the satisfaction of an answer, the footsteps around me moving in near synchronicity. “God is our refuge in strength, an ever-present help in trouble,” related Reverend Ephesian. “It's a rather beautiful verse, to speak of the all-mighty nature of God. He is present, in us all,” said the Reverend. “And I do admire his patience, offering an extended stay to even the most undesirable of people. In due time,” he defaulted, nodding to himself.  
“You say that God left me here,” I pointed out. “Then who are you to interfere with that?”  
The Reverend laughed, and at my back I felt the nose of the gun prodding between my shoulder blades. “I am a vessel of God,” delivered the Reverend. “But I believe in being fair-.”  
“And this is fair,” I seethed, the gun at my back one metallic spray away from penetrating my spine and heart. If I spun fast enough I was sure I could over-power the man holding it, but one calculated spin meant the brief smatter of seconds it would take for the rest of the men to turn and shoot me with.  
“Let me finish,” sighed the Reverend. We were approaching a tall stony building, made of bubbling rock and leaning forward with dis-use. It was an old decaying farm, the house of my final hours. “There will be a trial, Alex, God tests you. I simply lead him to you.”

 

xxx  
Eve  
Fern looked terrified, wide-eyed. I was pacing the small length of the hallway, trying to concoct a quick and fail-proof plan. “You said it's just outside the compound? The farm house they're taking him to?”  
She nodded. “I've seen it, from the window. I've seen them bringing people out there and they... they don't come back.”  
“I have to get him,” I said, straightening.  
“Look,” Fern's voice was careful, sympathetic. “I know you care about him. But you don't have any weapons, or a plan, or anything.”  
“I know,” I said, meeting her large green eyes. “But I have to do something.”  
“You'll get yourself killed.  
“So I get myself killed,” I said, biting my bottom lip. “I guess I'm okay with that.”  
She sighed, running her fingers through her hair. “I don't think he wants you to do that. He-he told me that he cares about you. And, if I cared about someone, I wouldn't want them to die too.”  
“Listen to me,” I said, reaching out to grab her by either shoulder. “Alex has saved my life again and again. I can't do this alone. Or maybe I can, but I won't. I am going to get him, even if I die trying. I'm not going to be talked out of it, but you could at least help me get to him.” Fern looked scared, I didn't expect her to be jumping to help. I expected to have to convince her, but she fidgeted, trying to be brave.  
“What do you need me to do?” she said.  
“You don't know where our guns are.” She shook her head looking sorry. “And that's fine, but do you know where we can find a weapon? Any weapon?”  
“I don't know,” she hesitated. “I mean. It's silly. But, there are swords in the Caesar Exhibit..”  
“That's not stupid. That's perfect.”  
xxx  
The swords in the Caesar exhibit were in a glass case. It was almost impossible to break into. I was forced to stick my fingers into the thin wedge between the glass, prying backwards as it compressed against my fingers. It shattered, large segments cutting deeply into my palms as the glass broke.  
The pressure faded from my fingers. The slick blood of my palms stung, but it was ignorable under the rush of my heart. I didn't know how to use a sword. I'd only used Alex's hunting knife an awkward handful of times. I didn't have a gun, and I still had to get past the chain-link to Alex. Before they executed him.  
My heart was beating too fast, my mouth too dry as I seized the sword and followed Fern at a dash out of the room, ducking behind the large profile of a gray statue at the sudden appearance of a man done up in plaid and jeans. He was looking around, frowning, thumbing a gun on his hands. He walked right by us, twisting into the courtyard. He was probably looking for us, Fern and I exchanged uneasy looks from behind the bust.  
“We have to go out the side, then,” I said uneasily. We would have to loop around the entire museum to get in the direction of the fawning building, and pass the conglomeration of walkers at the fence – as well as the people shooting at them. Fern didn't look confident about my plan, but she didn't voice any objections having no ideas of her own.  
I was the leader here. There was no one else to confer with, and my decisions could easily mean life or death for this girl, who wasn't much more than a kid. The feeling made me feel oddly unreal, like I was watching above myself, ahead of myself.  
I thought as we moved, sliding out the side door with a soft bang and approaching the fence. I immediately began sawing at the chain-link, encouraging Fern to do the same as she stood there looking apprehensive. When the hole was large enough for us to fit through we folded it back, shifting through. The exposed wire cut into my stomach and back, scraping across Fern's collar bone as we stepped through to the other side.  
“We have to move quietly, but fast,” I told her as we shifted into the woods. The area was familiar and I tried to think, peering in between the trees. They were bare of leaves, a mass of tangled branches and trunks of varying thickness, snow settled in the boughs of the branches. It could take a good forty minutes to get to the barn on foot. I knew the car was nearby, the keys hidden expertly in the roots of a tree. Alex hadn't marked it, trusting that in memory alone we could find the spot. All the naked trees looked the same though, my memory failing me as I inspected the area surrounding the Covenant.  
xxx  
Alex  
Adam wound my hands behind my back at the wrists, tying my legs to the individual chair legs. One of the other men held a gun to my head, while the Reverend disappeared with another older man, chatting idly. “Do you feel powerful?” I asked him as he tightened the knot at my wrists. “It's easy to overpower someone when you're in the bigger group. You want this to be fair? Untie me.”  
The man with the gun snorted, but didn't speak, as if amused by my rage.  
“God will judge you as he sees fit,” Adam delivered, straightening his head.  
“I think you have your deity's mixed up,” I snapped, pulling at the binds on my wrist. They bit into the skin of my wrists, tied with expertise. I wasn't the first hostage presented for Judgment.  
At the door I could hear a moaning growl, a lumbering familiar pitch. The Reverend returned with the other man, both holding a large steely chain attached to the walker. The walker surged forward, straight on his feet and yellow-eyed with hunger. He let out an inhuman hiss, he jerked forward, twitching to converge on the nearest person. The Reverend and the man pulled the chains, steering him back.  
“Is this your God?” I glared from my spot tied to the chair, without a weapon, without anything.  
“This is a demon,” clarified The Reverend. “God will decide if you are worth saving.”  
I tried to move my head out of the way as they loped a bind around my mouth, cutting off my words.

There was a hiss from the door and the man clutching the chains turned with a start. Adam rose his gun, delivering a bullet at the entering walker that sent it flying back. “Ted, keep watch,” snapped the Reverend, looking unnerved. Ted moved from my side, moving out of the old barn with his head bowed respectfully. He disappeared around the front, leaving the Reverend, the chain-wielder, Adam and the lurching zombie who stumbled forward, stunned when the chains caught at him again. He roared, lurching forward towards his bound meal.  
The walker had a series of bite wounds on its neck, I could see the tissue of the esophagus, crushed and pink under the mouth of a wound. It eyes were bloodshot, tearing a whiteish fluid that stained its face like blood. It let out a spit-fused growl, lurching towards me.  
I forced myself to stay calm, refusing to accept a fearful death. I refused to accept death, even now as I dug at the rope in my hands, trying to work my fingers up my palm to the length of rope. 

xxx  
Eve  
Everything looked the same. Naked trees, a dusting of snow. Flurries had fallen since our arrival, turning out trail invisible. Maybe it was a good thing, because then no one had found the car. But I didn't know how to find it either, and I was losing time.  
Fern followed my darting gaze, looking around the clutch of trees for anything. At a loss I looked upwards, stuck on the Psalm. I looked to it, thinking when I had first seen it. I'd been approaching from the clutch of trees there. I thought about what I had passed, tracing an invisible path of where we had approached from.  
I'd remembered seeing the Psalm walking in. It was diagonal to where we had approached, I traced the steps, looking at the ground as if I could see the print of our shoes. I paused, looking sharply to the left. My heart ceased in racing to skip. There, concealed beneath branches and shrubbery was the car. The keys were buried in the roots of the nearby tree, I grabbed at them with shaking fingers. I pulled open the driver-side, stepping into the car. The air was permeated with the familiar smell of Alex's sweat. It sent a small stab of pain into my heart, igniting my anxieties once more.  
Fern moved into the backseat automatically, looking nervous and pale. “I haven't been out of the compound since the beginning.. and even then, we got here fast,” she whispered. “I came with my church.”  
I didn't have time to offer her comfort, bringing the car to life with a twist of the key. The radio came on for a hint of an instant, the broadcasting message still breathing into the speakers. I jammed the button, levying the gas. “Put your seat belt on,” I told Fern, laying the sword across my lap. The car drove forward with a hard jerk, careening on the choppy terrain of the woods. I had to use my full arms to steer the car, the wheels volleying for purchase as they were twisted from side to side by roots and branches. There was a terrible screech of wood on metal as it scraped up against the car, alerting the attention of a nearby walker who threw himself at the car, pounding with mottled fists.  
Fern screamed. I threw open the car door smacking the walker, he scrambled for purchase, knocked off balance onto the forest floor. I applied the gas in a tough jerk, leaving the walker behind us and the car startling forward with a groan. “Stay in the car,” I told her as we approached the barn. “If I don't bring him back out, you get out of here.” I leaned down to pop the trunk. She looked wide-eyed to me as I ducked out of the car door. I didn't see the fifteen odd zombies, aroused by the snapping of undergrowth beneath the car. I grabbed my pistol from the trunk, the weight of it in my hand making me feel somewhat better, a breath in the rapid panic. Still, my anxieties skittered about my chest like living things.  
I moved to the side of the bar, running a fingers along the pebbles mashed into the side of the mottled wood. There were large chunks coming out, the building was on the verge of falling down. I hunkered near the window, biting my tongue as I neared it to glimpse past the frame. The sight of Alex gave me a start. He was tied to a chair, his jaw straight, his eyes hard and bright in the face of death.  
Reverend Ephesian held to the leash of his demon, who tugged for anything near it, purple tongue scraping hungrily against its teeth. Adam held the reigns in his other hand, between them the two men were holding a bible, praying, the third man keeping the bible steady. “For the Will of God, Unfold. Judge who is deemed to walk the Earth-.”  
“Reverend, we're getting a lot of activity out here,” picked up a voice from the doorway. Inside the walker was pulling on the reigns, growling, swinging back occasionally just for the Rev to step to the side while the two of them yanked the chains in opposing directions, causing the creature to stumble and jerk forward, cataract-ridden eyes set on Alex.  
The man it had been might have been handsome. What he had become was a monster. His esophagus was a disaster, his eyes ravenous. He had a bleeding wound from his hip, and a femur poking out the skin of his leg, half rotten and leaking torrents of blood. He growled, lurching for Alex as The Reverend finished his prayer.  
The gun suddenly felt very heavy in my head, as I realized what I would have to do.  
I knew why I had to do it, and it didn't cause me to hesitate though the realization came smarting, like a slap across my face. I felt stupid for never considering the actuality. The steps ahead of me had been physical. Get to point B. Retrieve. Survive. What I was about to do was final, changing. I lifted the heavy pistol inhaling unevenly. I had about a second to shoot The Reverend and his son. The man in the middle was unarmed, protected only by his bible, but if I missed, I would get shot. Either way, I had to move out of range immediately.  
And what about the walker? It would set right on Alex. I couldn't shoot it first and rouse attention.  
Things had to be timed perfectly. I licked my lips, the lumbering walker had been jerking for Alex, and turned aiming for The Reverend who was finalizing the prayer. “Hail Mary, full of Grace, the lord is with thee..,” he lulled. Adam went to pull back on his reign, straitening the lead as he spoke with his father. I clamped my tongue between my teeth as I lined up the shot, my hands shaking as I fired at Adam's head.  
The Reverend jerked to look at his son, the bullet penetrating his forehead. His body fell heavily, the leash slackening. Ephesian was stunned, reaching for his son as the walker lumbered forward, converging on him. The barn door threw open, Ted firing blindly near the window as he stepped in. The bullet zipped by my head, forcing me to flatten myself against the side of the building. I could taste my heart in my throat. The man with the bible was screaming, The Reverend hollering in anguish as the walker tore at the flesh in the cleft of his neck. Ted shot the walker, dropping to the Reverend who was gurgling a last order. “Shoot him,” he hissed into the open air. “Kill them.” I shifted to fire, throwing myself back as a bullet whizzed by my ear before I could turn. My ear exploded in a frenzy of pain, I could feel the heat from the wound, lighting up the side of my ear like a burn.  
A blood-curling scream cut the air and I moved to the window to see the walkers filling in the barn, a black haired girl with blood dripping from the back of her head took Ted by surprise and biting into his throat, worrying her head like a dog. Another lumbered forward towards Alex and I shot him, vaulting over the window. The man with the bible tossed it down, loping out the unoccupied window, disappearing as the barn began to flood with walkers. Alex was shaking his head furiously, trying to work off his mouth binding. I jerked it down, kneeling behind the chair to try to untie him but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn't get my fingers in between the ropes.  
“Eve, walker!” I let go of his wrists to pick up the pistol again, firing twice at the two approaching zombies. One bullet went well off course, splintering against the wooden infrastructure of the barn. The zombies who were devouring the preacher, Adam and Ted all rose, triggered by the sound and lumbering to their feet.  
“Come on Eve, untie me. Come on!” yelled Alex, the steadiness in his voice wavering. My hands were still shaking but all at once I remembered the sword, wedging it between Alex's hands and driving downwards. I sawed hard, the ropes splitting reluctantly as the zombies approached, growling. I stepped forward, driving the sword into the center of the closest zombie's head, a blonde girl with her head twisted almost entirely to the side. Alex grabbed his chair, swinging it down hard on the second zombie, it fell backwards from the motion as the chair splintered. Alex wrapped his hand around my upper arm as the barn began to fill with them, pulling me away as their acrid smell filling the barn with a terrible rot. Their blood-stained hands were outstretched to snatch us closer and devour us just the same. “Eve, come on! Now!” Alex jerked my arm hard, and I hit the sill, finally coming back to reality. I ducked my head, stumbling after him as we slipped through the window around the walkers, rushing for the car. 

I held my ear as Alex mashed the gas, the car lurching away from the demons whose fingers had skated across us. The last of the mob entering the barn had turned to trudge after us instead, features distorted with mortal wounds and decay as the car groaned in an attempt to take on the hill. “Fucking go,” Alex snarled to the car. The engine left a terrible burning smell in our nostrils as the car wobbled forward, slowly pulling out of the forest and onto the road. It tumbled forward, the engine groaning. Alex corrected the wheel in one smooth gesture, crushing the peddle. The car roared forward, dancing past the wreckage of a less lucky car accident, leaving Westerrose behind us.


	5. Chapter 5

xxx

Alex  
Eve cradled her ear as the roads zipped by, store fronts swept with snow disappearing in a blur. I pulled the car behind an empty plaza, putting into park and twisting the key to halt the engine. My wrists ached but I resisted the urge to rub them, turning to look over Eve. She smelled like an overwhelming amount of blood.  
“Are you sure we're safe here?” Fern's voice cut in, short and hysterical. She had been quietly crying for most of the ride and her face was now a wet mess.  
Now that the car wasn't moving she looked like she was on the verge of a panic attack.  
“We're okay,” I told her, reaching to touch Eve's leg in the hopes of getting her attention. “Eve? You alright?”  
“But there's more of them, there has to be more of them, and there were so many,” Fern babbled, the hitch in her breaths audible.  
“Fern, shut up!” I glared at the girl in the back seat. I could only handle so much tension at once. I had been tied to a chair and assaulted with a walker, it was difficult to move from that to trying to calm everything down.  
Eve shifted her hands away from her ear. There was blood on her fingers, and a closed wound on right hand. There was blood all over her clothes from the opposite palm.  
“Here.” I leaned forward tilting her head to examine her ear. “Yeah, bullet grazed you. We're going to want to clean that,” I said, carefully touching the closed skin near the wound. Eve jerked back as if afraid I would touch it, cupping her ear.  
“It's fine,” she muttered. “It's just blood.”  
“Hey,” I squeezed her knee. “Can you look at me?” She looked over from the window, her hand still laced protectively around her ear. “You did the right thing, okay? They were going to kill me, and I know it's scary that you had to kill a couple of people but they were bad people, Eve. And you did the right thing.”  
“Three,” she said. “Not, a couple. Three. Three people. A Dad, A son. Ted.” She blinked. “His name was Ted, right?”  
A walker was roaming near the car, taking large lurching steps, their torso wavering like an after-thought. I knew because Fern was freaking out, pointing and jabbering. Eve looked to it, dis-interested. “Should I stab it?” She looked down at the sword in her lap, as if just realizing it was still there. The blade was red with blood. She reached for it but I pulled it from her lap, pushing open my door, rounding the car. I violently kicked out at the walker's leg, swinging them out from under it. It fell backwards letting out a raspy choke as its head banged up against the pavement. I brought the sword down between its eyes, watching it shudder, eyes bleached and vacant then finally still. I wiped the blade off on her shirt, moving back to the car.  
Fern was dead silent, she wouldn't quite look at me. Eve was resting her head against the window, looking pacified and gone. “Eve,” I said again, trying to get her attention.  
“I'm fine,” she repeated. “It's fine. It's okay. I know, I just. I need a minute.”  
“Okay, I said, tonguing my cheek with some agitation. “Let me see your hand, this one.” I reached for her left palm, it was still bleeding. The blood looked slick and wet, like it was having trouble clotting. “This needs stitches. And cleaning. I'm going to grab the kit from the back.”  
I carried the kit to the front of the car, glancing around as I entered, trying to think of the best way to do this. I had never given stitches before, which I wasn't about to confess to Eve who was already emotionally derailed. “Fern, hand me that blanket.”  
Fern reached down, handing me the crumpled blanket from the back of the car. I laid it on the console between the seats, reaching for Eve's hand by the back. She closed her eyes, the pain clearly written on the back of her eyes. I used the antiseptic to clean my hands first, rinsing off the blood underneath the wheel and wiping my hands on a roll of white gauze. I then swabbed the gauze with alcohol, leaning to clean the wound.  
Eve cried out, turning her head sharply to the side. Her hand jerked but remained in position, blood spilling from the wound and staining the blanket, running down the console and into the cup holder. Fern was white as a ghost in the backseat, turning her head sharply away. “It's alright,” I told Eve. “I need you to keep still. It's important, alright?”  
“I need something to bite,” she said. I glanced around the kit, finding nothing I pulled free the scissors cutting a length of the blanket off and twisting it. I wound it into Eve's mouth for her, she bit down and turned her head to the side.  
She let out a muffled scream of pain as the needle cut into her skin, whimpering as it laced through the other end. Her hand shook but she kept it in position, gasping underneath the bind as the needle laced her skin again. I held her hand still with one hand, using the other to guide the needle. I found myself biting on my tongue as I stitched across the wound, cutting the nylon thread with the operating scissors and wrapping the wound in a white bandage. The bandage immediately went bright and red, slowly darkening as I wrapped around her hand, tying it off.  
“I'm sorry. No painkillers.” Our packs were still at Westerrose, where they would remain. We were down the bulk of food stock, the antibiotics from the pharmacy, the bat, the rifle and the hunting knife. Both of us had also lost the clothes on our back, exchanged for mission statement religious clothing, that would be a pain to fight in. I was sure Eve was already cold in her long thin skirt. And she was in pain, something she had come into for me. I wished I had something to give her. “But we have two swords now. And the pistol.” I removed the gun from my pocket. Eve looked at it. I knew she was thinking about shooting Adam. “There's five bullets left,” I told her, dropping the pistol back in my lap. “What about you, Fern? Anything useful?”  
Fern glanced down at herself. She was in regulation jeans, a long sleeved shirt and a thin coat. She checked in the pockets of her sweater and came back with a few pennies, that stunned even her. She shook her head to the contrary. “We need to restock.” I scanned the outside world, everything was wet with melting snow. It had been a cold December and January wasn't looking like it would be warming any time soon.  
“Now?” Fern's voice was surprised in the back. “I mean, we all, just almost died.”  
“That's really not that unusual,” I said, firing the car back up. The engine purred to life, the gas gauge climbing upwards. It had been smart to prep the car had we needed to take off soon after.  
“Eve's in pain,” she said next, uneasy. “Don't you think we should... stop?”  
“I don't want to stop,” Eve responded, turning her gaze out the window as the car bumbled onto the street.  
“We'll hit a pharmacy. Should be able to grab some food, medicine, and bunk down for the night.”  
“We're not sleeping in the car?” Eve glanced to me and I shook my head, though it made me agitated to think about leaving the vehicle.  
“No. Let's get some actual sleep.”  
It was odd, how the floor of a pharmacy counted as actual sleep.  
xxx  
Fern waited in the car, wide-eyed as a jack-o-lantern. I told Eve she could stay but she insisted on coming, cradling her hand to her chest, and making me nervous with her reluctance to move it. I had tried to argue her our of it, but she seemed to breathe a little easier in the fresh air.  
I held the sword Fern had given me, approaching the first stumbling walker. It rose its head to attention with a slight growl, looking up from the shop window hungrily. Its face was blue from lack of blood-flow, the eyes swollen in the sockets as if they were being forced out by the building pressure of blood in the head. I brought the sword down between its eyes, leaving a dark red smear on the sidewalk in front of the store. Eve stood nearby, eying the body as I worked the lock. I pushed it open as Eve shifted to examine another approaching walker. I pulled the door to a shut, to turn and fatally wound it, an ex-soccer mom with love handles, a cell phone by some miracle was still poking out the top of her jean pocket. “Come on,” I put out my arm to pull Eve into the shop behind me, sword at the ready. 

All of the supplies in the hair care aisle had been knocked to the floor, shampoos and conditioners knocked half-open, leaving the blood on the floor smelling strangely fruity. I could hear the lumbering moans of a zombie, slowly moving towards us. I approached bringing the sword down into its head, well-aware of the second grousing moans, and a third further down. I crouched after the kill, the body making a wet slapping sound as it hit against the carpet. The light from the window lit up tazer burn marks on its neck, and I wondered what unlucky son of a bitch had tried to tase a zombie.  
Eve moved behind me. I could barely hear her footsteps, which was good and worrying at the same time. I came up on the security guard, grabbing the back of his head and plunging the knife at an angle beneath the hairless bulge.  
I turned around but Eve had disappeared, approaching what had been a woman, who turned and hissed at her. There was blood all over her mouth, and she was wearing a draping canvas wrap across her front, it looked oddly weighted at the middle, stained red. Eve looked to it morosely, then looked to the walker. It took a step towards her and she drove the point forward clumsily, pinning its head to the back wall. It dropped hard to the ground. She turned to look at me, I looked at her as she closed her eyes, catching her elbow before she could fall. “That was a baby,” she told me, as the world skated around her.  
“I know,” I said. “And it sucks, but it's over.”  
“Does it ever stop?” she whispered, her voice buried in the front of my chest. I cupped her face, forcing her to look up at me.  
“It never stops,” I told her. “Don't think for one second it will ever stop, because the second that you think it will wait, just a minute for you to catch your breath – that's when it kills you.” There was a groan down the aisle, I turned to watch the origin lumber closer, striding forward with my sword to plant it between the walker's eyes. I wiped the blood on my pants, returning to gather Eve's head in my palms.  
She dropped her head against my chest, her breath soft and rasping. I rested my head on hers, pulling her in closer. Her mouth found mine and I kissed her, hard, the world finally quiet as I pulled her hair into my hands, her mouth into mine. 

xxx  
Eve

“We're feeding an illusion,” Alex said as he lifted the body beneath the arms, draping it over the grocery cart like it was nothing but a bag of feed. I hadn't bothered trying to lift the corpses, even if my hand was feeling a little better I knew I couldn't get them higher than a few inches off the ground. Alex got mad when I made the attempt anyway, so it was just easier to watch for now. Of course, he was on a kick and watching meant listening too. “It isn't good for her, which means it isn't good for us.” His tone was tart, his mind made up.  
“She's still recovering. She doesn't know what it's like.” I glanced towards the front of the store where Fern was facing the wall, refusing to fully enter until the bodies were gone.  
“Exactly. That's why we need to show her.” Alex wheeled the cart around the aisles, moving to the woman's body; I followed after him.  
“I understand what you mean. But I don't think we can heap it all on her at once. She'll crack.”  
“Did you crack?” Alex ladled the woman's corpse into the wagon, looking disgusted instead of hurt. I envied his ability to shut it off.  
“I saw, a lot, before you picked me up. I'm not saying that I knew what I was doing, but I knew how bad it was. She doesn't have any idea.”  
“And so you want to coddle her. I get that, I get where you're coming from, alright? But you're wrong. You're very wrong, and you're going to get her killed.” Alex pushed the cart, stopping as it hit something hard and plastic on the ground. He bent to retrieve the taser, looking it over. It was blocky and black, a large yellow strip around the center making it look like something out of a cartoon. He flicked the switch to off, pocketing it.  
“I am not going to get her killed.”  
“Then tell her to come here,” said Alex, straightening as if ready to put the plan into action. “Tell her to look at this, and deal with it, then we'll take her outside and she can smash her first skull.”  
“It's too much at once.”  
“We handled it,” he said. “She has to handle it.”  
“She just needs some time. This has been a really hard day, can't we just, give her some time?”  
Alex rolled his eyes, pushing the cart. “Can we? Sure. But don't expect me to shut my mouth about it.” He lifted the final corpse, laying it across the cart.  
“I'm not saying you should shut up.”  
“You just want me to agree with you, but I don't,” he said. “And I know you know I'm right.” He looked to me, waiting for me to change my mind. “I'll drag her over right now.”  
I shook my head. Alex mirrored the gesture, pushing the cart to the back door to spill the bodies out onto the lot. He let it shut behind him, stepping back. “Tell the Princess her room is ready.”  
“Alex,” I sighed, wondering why I was bothering.  
“I could tell her.” He looked to me, waiting. I turned to talk to Fern myself, knowing I would handle it more gently.  
She was still facing the wall, her arms folded, waiting to be bullied more by Alex. Her face was still wet with tears but she looked angry, a recurring side effect of getting into a fight with Alex. “Is he always such a jerk?” she muttered. “He was nice at Westerrose. I guess that's because he needed something.”  
“It wasn't because he needed something,” I said, though I wasn't sure of the validity to it. “I know he seems, mean, but he's looking out for you. He's not wrong, you do have to be able to handle these things.”  
“Not yet,” she said softly. “I'm not ready yet, don't make me, please.” She turned to look at me, her eyes treading water again.  
“I'm not going to make you,” I told her. “I'm just letting you know where he's coming from.”  
She nodded, accepting my answer that she didn't agree with. I seemed to be playing a precarious game of getting people to do what I'd like while no one was on the same page. 

xxx  
Alex and Fern settled down in tense silence around the conglomerate of pillow pets and about twelve tie-dye dresses. I hadn't been able to find regular pillows, or even blankets. There had been one long coat hanging in the back, and the festively colored clothing. It was going to make an awful bed, and I was cold to my core in the stupid skirt I'd been forced into.  
Alex lifted the red shopping basket of canned goods and some bagged stuff we'd snagged as we had moved around the pharmacy. There were several carts abandoned mid-trip. One cart had a diaper bag in it, a small package of formula at the forefront of the wagon. I had said nothing as we slipped by it.  
“Here,” Alex undid the cap on a bottle, shaking a couple pills in his hand and passing them to me.  
“What is it?” I spun the cap on my lukewarm Coke, downing them.  
“Oxy. It's a painkiller.”  
“You gave her two?” Fern looked somewhat astonished. “She probably weighs less than me. You should have had, like a fourth of that.”  
“She'll be fine,” Alex snapped. “What are you doing? You're going to freak her out.”  
The pills felt blistery and stuck in my throat.  
“Look, I've taken them before. Like five at a time, and I was fine. Your hand is going to feel great, and you're going to relax.”  
“You took these, like for fun?” I pressed.  
“No,” Alex rolled his eyes. Fern didn't look like she believed him. “I was in a car accident, I broke my leg. Took Oxy. But thank you, I didn't know you thought of me like that.” He stood up, walking away to get himself something to eat in silence.  
I felt bad pretty quickly. Fern didn't seem to care as much, leaning into the crate to recover a bag of lollipops. She popped it open with a snap, unraveling one to suck on and collapsing into the pillows.  
I finished my soup before I went to Alex. It seemed to take hours. “I was looking all over for you,” I muttered when I finally found him. He was sitting in one of the arm chairs in the consultation area of the pharmacy counter. “Is your prescription done?” I dropped into the bordering arm chair, turning it to face him. My hand hurt when I picked up the chair with it, a white hot stab and I gasped drawing it to my face, surprised to remember the wound there.  
Alex shook his head. He was staring into the aisles of the store, looking at mostly nothing, and sulking. “I don't remember why you're mad at me, I just remember that you're mad.” He turned his head to look at me again, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. “Can you just remind me?”  
“You think I'm a junkie.”  
“Oh yeah,” I said, somewhat casually slumping back into my arm chair. “Well. Alex,” I said, articulating his name carefully. “Obviously, that was preposterous. It's just, you have this whole – bad boy thing going for you, and I figured there was probably some drug use in there. I didn't say you were a junkie. I don't think of you like that.”  
“No, it's pretty clear what you think of me.”  
“I feel like you're being sarcastic,” I said. “But it's really not fair. Because, I almost died for you today. And it was really, really scary. But I did it for you. And you're not a junkie. And can you please, just stop being mad? I am way too, lost and spinny to be talking about this.” Alex shifted to look t me, he still didn't look very happy. He didn't look very anything. “How come, when I space out I look like I forgot my next trick in the middle of, a circus act, then you do it and it's brooding and sexy?”  
“Sounds like a self esteem thing,” he rebuffed, spinning my words.  
“Wow, that was pretty deep.” I bit down on my own tongue, it felt dry and strange in my mouth. “I think I lost my soda.”  
Alex swung down his hand to grab his by the neck, passing it to me. I struggled to open it for no real reason, my left hand simply failing to make purchase. Alex sighed, walking his armchair closer and opening the soda, dropping his hand onto my lap. I tossed it back, the soda seemed to move past my tongue instead of washing it out. My lap was burning from Alex's hand imprint, which was impressive because all of me felt about twenty degrees hotter than normal.  
“Were we talking about something?” I frowned, glancing around me for something to jog my memory.  
“My sex appeal?” he suggested.  
“I-I do not think we were talking about that?” I wasn't exactly sure. I felt too hot to think clearly. I wondered if I was visibly sweating, brushing off my forehead. It didn't feel wet, everything felt really dry instead.  
Alex ran his fingers across my leg, almost as if it were incidental.  
I didn't care very much if it was, not physically. My body was clued in to his every inhale, despite my poor ability to keep track of anything else that was going on. I leaned back into the chair, feigning exhaustion so I wouldn't feel so stupid.  
“I have no idea what's going on,” I muttered. “I am so confused.”  
“Stop thinking,” he told me, which was probably the first time he'd ever said that.  
“Wait a minute, you told me to never stop thinking.” I made to point my finger at him, the crush of pain in my palm reminding and stopping me. “Did I get stabbed in the hand?”  
“You broke a cabinet.” Alex's hand had stopped dancing up my leg, settling on my thigh. I think he knew exactly what he was doing. I wasn't sure enough to say anything about it, though. I brought up my good hand to brush through my hair, it smelled like the strawberry lotion I had rubbed in there, in the hopes of wiping off the smell of death and blood.  
“Why did I break a cabinet? For those knives, right?”  
“Swords,” Alex embellished, his fingers tracing circles on my thigh. “You stop talking every time I stop touching you, then you start again. I'm making you nervous.” My cheeks felt hot at the observation, which probably wasn't off.  
“Well, I can't breathe when you touch me,” I pointed out. “I start melting. Then I feel like there's no air, so I guess I start talking.”  
“That sounds awful.”  
“You have no idea,” I said to the ceiling, my eyes still closed. The blood-flow was making me dizzy so I reluctantly tipped my head forward again, even if it meant making eye contact with Alex. He never smiled when I needed him to. He was too sarcastic when I was already lost in whatever I was feeling. He was so confident that he just said whatever he thought, so right that he didn't entertain being wrong. I wished I felt half as sure about anything. I wanted to ask him, how he did it, but I didn't know the words to say as much. Instead I just looked at him, not sure of what to say or do, wishing he would make it easier just this once. He shifted his gaze back to the pharmacy, looking around at all the nothing. It was organized chaos, tilted aisles I had become used to, the air that smelled fragrant and bloody all at once. People had died here, but right now it didn't feel like it. “I feel too okay,” I said, recalling his advice for some reason. “I need to stop, right?”  
“No. It's good to feel okay. It's not good to expect things around you to change because you're okay,. We'll talk about it when you're not high as a kite.” He dropped his hand from my leg, standing and stretching. I was disappointed our moment was over, swallowed. “I'm going to get some sleep. You should too.”  
“Yeah,” I agreed, not moving. The air was already feeling a bit cooler, swimming up my skirt and under my skin like a chill.  
Alex disappeared into the darkness of the building, and it felt like a pharmacy again. I could almost smell the rubbing alcohol, it was a strange and sudden transformation. I rubbed at my temples with my good hand, wondering if I would ever feel okay for longer than ten minutes.

 

xxx  
In the morning, I almost threw up. It was a fun way to wake up, my good hand pressed into my lips as I looked for an appropriate place to vomit. Nothing ended up coming up, but I'd wandered pretty loudly half-way across the pharmacy, waking both of them.  
“Yeah, Oxy will do that if you don't drink enough water,” Fern said. “You should probably drink some water.”  
“Sound advice,” I said. The burst of hot bile in my throat had made my eyes water, it was a shitty way to start the day.  
My hand was pulsing too, alive with its own force and it felt awful. I rose it to my face, examining the nearly dripping red bandage. Fern abruptly stood, walking away at the sight. Alex looked after her, then to me, shaking his head like it was my fault she was repulsed by the sight of my own blood.  
He shifted to his feet, wiping sleep from his eyes and disappearing to grab some bandages. He returned, his hands smelling like green tea soap as he began unraveling the wrap. “Ow, ow ow,” I bit, my voice high and clipped like sonar. “Should it hurt this much?”  
“Yes,” he said, sounding unsympathetic. The wound underneath was a red angry mouth, the stitches like long teeth across my palm. It was red and inflamed, tender as he rewound it and I cried out, biting on my tongue to keep from losing my composure completely. “There you go,” he said, once it was wrapped again, and turning pink. “Now that you're all better, let's hit the weapon store.”  
“What?” I groaned outwardly. “I just opened my eyes, Alex, and my hand hurts...” I sounded like a miniature version of myself, a kid with extremely legitimate complaints.  
“Take an anti-inflammatory. We need guns and ammo, Eve. Sorry.” He shrugged. I glowered at him.  
“Let's go tomorrow.”  
“Yeah, let's put off basic self defense as long as possible.” He moved to his feet, brushing my blood off on his deteriorating jeans. “You can stay and babysit Fern.”  
“No. You are not going anywhere without me, probably ever again. Last time you got kidnapped, remember?”  
I remembered clearly, feeling oddly serious as I remembered firing the pistol. It didn't hurt quite as much to think about today, like the wound had cauterized, the blood-flow stemming. “Do you think he was, nuts?” I looked to Alex. “Or just, drunk on power?”  
“...Who?” Alex squared his shoulders, waiting for me to finish talking.  
“The Reverend. And Adam.”  
Alex rolled his eyes, he obviously didn't want to chat about the people who had tried to murder him the night before. “Does it matter? They're dead now.”  
I said nothing. Even Alex seemed to realize his tread wasn't quite so light and he sighed. “You did the right thing, okay? I get this fucking, awful hopeless feeling every time their name comes up. They tied me to a chair and set some walkers on me. You'd come in sixty seconds later and I'd have a neck wound the size of a continent. I'd have my teeth in you right now, and not in a good way. Now they're dead, they should be dead, and I'm alive as I should be. Thicken from it and move forward.” He turned and stalked away, leaving me confused, as he often did. 

xxx  
The gun shops in the area were raided. We passed the few there were. The display windows were often collapsed in, the bare shelves dusted with snow. Alex thought we were better off looking for walkers in uniform, or checking out a lesser known shop that might have been overlooked. Instead we spent most of the day wasting gas, and arousing the attention of a few walkers.  
Either we weren't the first to have the idea, or the police officers turned walking dead had lost their weapons somewhere along the way. A hopeful turned into a misplaced holster on a walker.  
We wasted an hour at a house, while I raided a wardrobe that was too big for me, loping warm pants around my waist twice. I brought back a coat for Fern. Alex was stiff and impatient, having torn apart most of the dressers in the house looking for a firearm. I knew that underneath his anger he was anxious, we were down to five bullets after all. But he wouldn't say as much, and he was looking for things to be mad about by the time we returned to the pharmacy.  
xxx  
Fern had done her nails and make up. I knew pretty quickly that Alex had found exactly what he was looking for to freak out about. I tried to head him off, but upon entering the pharmacy he had his blinders up. “Don't,” he said, throwing out an arm to curb the budding of my own words. “You hoping to be the most fashionable corpse in the plaza?”  
“Alex, she-.”  
“Shut up!” he snapped, his hands balled into fists. I gave up pretty quickly, just not in the mood to get between them. I loped to the consultation area, dropping into a seat as if waiting for someone to come over to me. I could hear their voices carrying to the back of the store, Alex enraged, Fern a terrible sad angry. I caught the words, playing pretend, and growing up. Fern told Alex she hated him, and he laughed at her.  
There was a bang as one of them threw something. I wasn't sure who.

The front door opened and my stomach dropped as Alex disappeared into the cool air. It was the first time he'd left since nearly getting ripped to pieces at Westerrose.  
Fern ambled to the back, red-faced and glaring. “He is such a jerk. I know he's your boyfriend, or whatever, but I just don't get it. He is mean, Eve. I think there is something wrong with him.”  
“He's not wrong,” I said quietly. “He goes about it wrong, but he isn't. If he was never hard on me I don't know that I would have tried so hard to prove him wrong. It's okay, that you take a minute. But you need to get over this.”  
“I should have stayed,” Fern said indignantly. “Neither of you care about me.”  
“That's not true.” I leaned forward in my seat, eying the teenager. Her arms were crossed, her eyes hot and hurt. “We both care about you. That's why Alex is so mad! We just want you to look out for yourself, because we can barely watch our own necks.”  
“Right, because it's the two of you,” she sniffed.  
“I meant our individual necks, Fern,” I corrected but she was already walking away, determined to yield to a proper sulk.  
I sighed, my hand throbbing in its bandage. I collected the supplies I needed, dropping to the counter to begin the tedious process of attempting to wrap my own hand. It was difficult to do left handed, even holding the wrap between my thumb and forefinger. I loped the gauze around in a widening circle, cringing with anticipation and hissing with pain at each touch of the gauze.  
The front door opened. I stood up, moving towards the registers to see Alex coming in, his eyelashes wet with snow. He shot me a dirty look. “What did I do? I'm just existing too near you.”  
“You enable her,” he snapped.  
“Help me.” I lifted the gauze I was still wrapping and he rolled his eyes, coming forward to finish winding it around the cut.  
“You don't know how to do anything.”  
“Sure I do,” I deflected. “I'm pretty good at saving you at the absolute last minute.” Alex scowled, ripping the gauze across with his hands.  
For whatever reason I hadn't made Alex feel any better. “We're going up to Taylor tomorrow. If Fern is afraid of breaking a nail she can stay here alone.”  
“What's in Taylor?” I turned, forced to follow Alex who was walking away. “Alex, I'm not going to just invest blindly in your plans because your word is the word of God. What's in fucking Taylor?”  
“Hunting cabins,” he snapped, spinning around to face me. “And maybe instead of questioning every single thing I do you could just trust me. I know it's hard, when you're convinced I'm some ex junkie-.”  
“I never said you were a junkie!” I snapped back, scraping over the remainder of his sentence. “You keep putting words in my mouth, you ever think that maybe these are things you're telling yourself!”  
“Yeah, Eve, I think I used to do hardcore drugs. Got confused. Did you pass any of those classes you're always going on about?”  
“I am not always going on about them!” I could feel the nails of my good hand digging into the skin on my palm. “I said it one time, when you were making fun of me-.”  
“Right, and you were getting offended,” Alex nodded, almost fondly.  
“Like you're doing right now? Because only you can get hurt, but when you do, it isn't your feelings. You're too fucking thick for those.”  
“I'm thick,” repeated Alex, his tone no longer arching but steady as he stepped forward. I stepped forward too, folding my arms stubbornly.  
“Yeah, you're thick,” I repeated.  
“Maybe you're just weak. Maybe you just haven't changed at all from the day I found you pointing the nose of your gun at one of those things, shaking in your goddam boots-.”  
“I saved your life!” I yelled over him, my voice carrying.  
“Shut the fuck up! Do you want everything on the street to hear us so you can have another near death experience and remember that this is the fucking end? We're not playing house!”  
“Does it look like I'm having fun playing!” My words were blundering, smashing into each other in an angry lash.  
“Yeah, it does.” His voice was level and smooth, making me feel like I was shouting, and over reacting.  
I opened my mouth to talk again but he cut in, talking over me. “Taylor, tomorrow, eight. Be ready, or just, don't fucking come.” He shrugged and walked away, leaving me standing in the middle of the aisle, trying to collect myself before I broke down completely.


	6. Chapter 6

I dropped into the seat of the car, my hand wrapped in a new white bandage, settling my bag at my feet. I felt sick about leaving Fern in the pharmacy alone, spending most of the night curled up next to her trying to calm her down.  
She'd been adamant about not coming. She was scared of being alone for the full day, but we'd be back, and she had a bat we had picked up at one of the houses. “Maybe it'll be nice to have some time to yourself,” I told her, remembering what Alex had said about me playing house. “Just, remember what's around you, and stay low. If you hear anything, you hide, and stay hidden.”  
She'd looked pale, frenzied. I'd spent half the night calming her down again, Alex ignoring us by staying all the way across the store. I didn't bother to tell him I was coming, but he knew anyway.  
Which I hated.  
Right now, I almost hated him. I watched the store disappear behind us as we pulled away, moving onto the street and dispersing a conglomerate of staggering corpses. They chased after the car, two-legged rotting dogs. I watched them in the mirror.  
Alex was stiff in his chair, eyes flashing, fingers flexing on the wheel. I could practically feel the tension between his teeth, the sharp clench in the muscle of his jaw. Nothing from the night before had been resolved, simply shelved for this spontaneous trip to Taylor. But Taylor was a hell of a drive away, and the silence sat between us like something tangible.   
I clicked on the radio, divvying between stations. The Westerrose feed was gone. I shut it off, the silence seeming louder. “Do you think it's my fault Westerrose fell?”  
I looked to him, waiting to see if he would ignore me. “Might be our fault they took down the broadcast.”  
“I cut a hole in the fence, to get out.”  
“They shouldn't have locked us in, and tried to murder me.” He swept the car to the side around a large wreck at the center of the room, a semi had crunched into the divider and paused. The driver door was open but no one was there.   
“It was hard,” I said, licking my teeth. “To kill Adam. But I did it because I had to.”  
“Okay.”  
“So, I'm not weak,” I repeated. “And just because, I might have sat down for six minutes and smiled about something doesn't mean I'm playing House. I haven't stopped thinking about it, ever. I think about it every morning, every night, it's in my every dream. And you saying that, it's infuriating, because I try really hard-.” I stopped myself, recollecting. My air escaped my nose in a bull-like snort.   
“Just because you shot a man doesn't make you strong,” Alex cut in. “I didn't obsess over it. I did what I had to do.”  
“Who did you shoot?” I looked to him somewhat surprised.  
“You have me pegged as a drug user, before all this, and yet don't think I've killed anyone.”  
“That's not fair, I met you pretty early in.”  
“Not early enough,” he said with a click of his jaw. I looked out the windshield, flurries were falling, sitting precariously on the green fields, decorating the hair of lumbering corpses.  
“Who did you shoot?” I repeated, when it became apparent Alex was tuning me out.   
“Most recently, a couple of people held me up. They pretended they had guns. I had to take them seriously, and I shot them. It was over a couple shitty MRE's and a pistol. But they were a threat, and I got rid of them.”  
“Do you remember what they looked like?”   
“No.”  
I considered what Fern had said, about something being wrong with Alex. He was aggressive, but you needed to be to survive. Here at the end hesitation or passivity would get you killed quickly. I wasn't weak, but next to him I'm sure I looked weak. I opened my mouth to speak again and he ground his jaw, irritably.   
“You can be, really confusing,” I said. Just because Alex talked around everything didn't mean I had to.   
“Maybe, you're just thinking too far into the things I do.”  
“That's what I mean. Half the time, I'm too stupid for a thought. The rest of the time, I'm over-thinking it all and playing house. What are you even trying to say?”   
“That, you only pay attention when you feel like it. You're like a High School student, vapidly gazing at the board. Except it isn't a board, we're on a battle field and you're not there. Not until you clue into something, fun,” he decided. “And it will get you killed. How do you not get that?”   
“And that makes me weak,” I clarified, trying to keep his argument contained into something I could break down point by point.  
“Yes.”  
“I'm lost.” I threw out my arms, stuck. “You're just throwing blanket words at me so you can attack. You don't have anything of substance-.”  
“You have lousy aim, you can barely make a head shot,it takes you forever to bring down a small walker and you can't take down anything bigger than you. You can't wind your own gauze, you can't hunt, or pick a lock, or hot-wire a car. You're barely quiet when you sneak around and you're feeding Fern's daydream, which brings up the point that you trust too easily. You obsess over killing someone who almost killed me, and you keep bringing it up never mind the reason I'm alive is a stroke of luck. Ted almost shot you in the face. The walkers I'm sure you never realized you alerted just happened to work in your favor. You don't know what you're doing, you're fucking lucky – and that's because I'm there, to pull you out the window when you're stumbling over your own two feet, or put the tire back on the car, or find us a weapon. You're weak when you stand alone.” His fingers flexed on the wheel. Up ahead, the tree-line was inclining, rising up into a behemoth of a mountain that we would be traveling on. The flurries were starting to stick to the ground.   
I wanted to feel nothing, but my hide wasn't thick enough as Alex liked to say. I felt hurt. And I felt like he was wrong, to a degree. He was also a little right. “So,” I said after a long pause. “I shouldn't trust you.”  
“Did I say that?”  
“You did,” I nodded tersely. “You said, that I trust too easy, and that you're always there to fix everything. Something about me standing alone.” I had a headache now, running my finger along the edge of my temple.  
“You can't listen either.” His voice was a hot burst. “I didn't fucking say that.”   
I looked out the window, trying to decipher all the nothing Alex was saying. It was too vague, there was too much of it. We spent the remainder of the car-ride in stony silence, advancing up the mountain.

xxx  
The hunting cabins in Taylor sat around a monster of a lake. It could take weeks to cover every cabin, but we didn't plan on being gone longer than the day. I wondered if Alex would change his mind about that, and I'd have to worry even longer about Fern getting swallowed, while she worried about us coming back at all. It didn't make sense to pitch it when we had first arrived, things were tense enough with us not talking and I didn't want to introduce speech into it.  
The snow was falling in bigger clumps now, hopefully it would be the last snowfall of the year. January was coming to a close and it was still stupidly cold. We moved to the first cabin after scanning the surrounding forest, quiet besides the call of the birds. Alex moved first, because he was better than me at everything.   
When we popped the first cabin door open it was to a disaster of a scene. There was a large bloody stain on the floor, resting on top of it were the only remaining parts of a walker, his intestines and snapping head. Alex looked disgusted, drawing the sword downward to penetrate the disembodied head.  
For a sick moment it looked like a strange kabob. Alex withdrew the sword with the soft clanging sound of the metal, tossing open the bathroom door to check for further danger.  
I wondered what had happened to the zombie that had left him in that state.   
Alex threw open the bedroom door. “Clear.” I listened to the sound of the drawers on the end table rolling forward as he searched. I scouted out the living room, tossing occasional looks to the window. A walker was bumbling across the snow, pacing. He had on camouflage, that would easily blend him into the woods, an unhappy surprise for any wandering survivor. He was too far away to justify leaving the cabin, instead I watched him pacing, twisting and lurching the perimeter of the grounds. I wondered if he had eaten the man, leaving behind only a head before slinking out the door.  
Alex reappeared, looking somewhat satisfied. He was holding an assault rifle, and a full box of ammo. “Thirty bullets,” he said, loading the chamber of the gun.   
“Glad you're happy,” I replied. He rolled his eyes, the gun clicking as the magazine was filled. He moved it over his shoulder, moving the pistol from his pants pocket and handing it to me. I took it without comment.  
We moved back out of the cabin, rousing the attention of the walker. He took his time lumbering over. I went for my sword, lifting it in my left hand. I'd been awkward with my gestures so far, and Alex was reluctant to let me even try. “I'll do it,” he said, stepping around me.  
“I guess you like me weak,” I said as he delivered the stabbing blow to the walkers head.   
“Stop being passive aggressive,” he said, brushing past me. “You're injured. When your hand heals you can grow a spine. Until then, chill.”   
He lumbered up to the next house, not waiting for me. I rolled my eyes, following after. “Door's locked. It's going to be loud to open. Check the window.”  
I moved around the side of the house, pressing my face to the glass. I couldn't see anything from where I was standing, though the glass was moist with condensation. “Looks okay?” I stepped back, listening as Alex began jiggling the knob. Something inside shifted. “Wait, walker. I see her now.”  
“Thanks for the heads up.”  
“Window's foggy,” I muttered, my voice lost in the pitching wind.  
“Wrap on the window so I can sneak up on her.”   
I did as he asked, feeling like I was knocking politely. The walker turned, approaching the glass. She brought back her fist in a heavy arc, I realized that she was going to break it nearly a second too late, stepping back from the plate glass as it rained down. Alex had slipped through the door while I distracted her, he brought the blade through the back of her head, it emerged from her forehead like a long thin horn. He looked up, suddenly looking past me. The tree-lines were shivering with the emergence of wandering gray bodies, I turned to examine them. It was at least fifteen of them, they hadn't seen us yet and were still a while away. “We'll go back to the car, drive further down,” said Alex. He wasn't asking and I didn't answer.  
xxx  
The snow picked up, starting to howl as we made it around the edge of the lake, to the area that had seemed calmer. Alex picked a cabin, the porch overhanging the lake, hoping for fishing lures. He found a couple poles in the bedroom closet, while he was looking I uncovered a crossbow in the dresser door, as well as several personal items. I shut it, removing the bow and lifting it to my face. It felt heavy and awkward. I re-positioned, aiming at the lamp next to the bed, wrapping my finger around the trigger.  
It fell with a small crash, Alex spinning with a start. He looked to the lamp then me with the crossbow, looking pissed. “Didn't want to fucking warn me?”  
“Nope,” I said, somewhat proud of myself for hitting my target, and making Alex jump. The arrow had more of side-swiped it, sending it veering off the table. I moved to retrieve the arrow, hefting the bow to my good arm. My right hand ached from holding it, but I didn't care very much.   
The house shivered with the intensity of the wind. “We're gonna have to wait this out,” said Alex, flexing the blinds. He dropped one of the fishing poles onto the bed, moving into the living room to arrange the fireplace.  
xxx  
The blast of heat was nice. I sat as near it as I could without singing my eyebrows, holding the crossbow in my lap. Alex dropped to a seat on the couch, untangling the fishing line. Eventually the pole was in order, and he dropped it against the arm chair.  
It was still bright out, and he stood up to explore the small cabin. It was just a hunting place, minus the personal artifacts that kept a house interesting. There weren't any pictures, and there were only paper plates in the cabinets.   
He dropped back into the living room, looking bored. We sat in stony silence for a while, my eyes burning orange from watching the fire. Outside the sun was dropping, and it was getting cold by the couch. Alex moved closer to the fire, sitting near me.  
I didn't feel so angry anymore. I was simply zapped of the emotion, left feeling restless. I wanted to be busting into more cabins, not worrying about Fern. I could tell Alex was bored, pulling at the splinters in the splitting wood floor. His anger had been washed out too. He wasn't ever going to apologize to me, even if he seemed to be attempting to play nice. He had stopped snapping, which was the most I was going to get from him.   
“Did your Uncle really teach you to hunt?” I broke our silence, electing to be the more mature person here.  
Alex glanced towards me, still playing with the floor.  
“Yeah. I'd stay with him a few weeks during the season.”  
“Just you two?”  
“Yes.”   
Alex didn't want to talk. Fine. I pulled my pack to me, deciding to be the bigger person. “Want to play?” I made to shuffle the cards, sending them spilling. He rolled his eyes, leaning forward to rake them into a small pile and deal them.  
Alex set up the basis for Blackjack a game I hadn't played since eighth grade, and poorly at that.   
I over bet first hand against the dealer pile, Alex getting a perfect twenty one.  
“What are we playing for?” Alex leveled his head. “It'll get boring fast without stakes.”  
“What do you want? Loser tangos with the walkers?”   
“No.”  
“Okay.” I shifted to unlace my boots before I could talk myself out of the impulse. I could be brave. I dropped them to the floor with a clunk, meeting Alex's eye. “Let's try that again.”   
Alex betrayed nothing, setting up the dealer hand again, one card face up, the other concealed against the floor. My heart was picking up in my chest, even it was stunned by my bold move.  
I was tired of waiting around, and Alex hadn't voiced a protest.  
I got eleven, Alex got four. He pulled off his shirt. I scanned his upper-body, returning to my hand feeling flushed, blaming it on the fire and not the carved muscle of his chest, blemished only by bruises and faint scars. The only worked to emphasize the sexiness, a double standard not lost on me, but something I couldn't seem to get bothered about, especially with Alex watching me watch him.  
I dealt my cards.  
Alex lost his footwear when I won twice in succession, he went over both times.  
Alex hit twenty one, then nineteen. I lost my socks and shirt in rapid succession, my chest feeling cold and hot all at once in the smoky room.   
“Sixteen,” I said confidently, displaying my cards.   
“Twenty.” He draped his over mine. I flickered my eyes across his, thinking.   
I stood, kicking off my jeans, rather boyishly. They were enormous, and fell quickly when I pulled off the belt. “They were scratchy, anyway.” Alex's eyes scanned my legs, perhaps considering pant-kicking romantic at this juncture in his life.  
I returned to my hand. Alex drew the dealer card, one blank faced and one heads up. I went over by three. Alex was under by two.  
“You don't have to,” he said, leaning back into his spot.  
“I know,” I said, reaching to undo my bra. My right hand was less than helpful, I hissed remembering I couldn't close it. “Help me?” I scanned his face, his eyes green and flickering with fire light.  
He dropped his hands on my legs, pulling me closer. The cards scattered underneath as his mouth clamped onto mine, his hand skating up my stomach, slipping underneath my bra. He used his right hand to undo the clasp, his hand compressing tightly on my chest. His mouth seemed to bite into mine, his tongue tracing the inside of my mouth, my lost breath muffled into his lips as he gripped my chest. His right hand dropped to my knee, tracing up my leg. He broke his mouth off of mine to sink his teeth into the cleft of my neck. My hands enveloped the back of his head, nails digging in at the nip of his teeth.  
I remembered he had said something about a good bite. Now it clicked, as his hands knotted over the cloth between my legs, tracing. His fingers slipped beneath the cloth, tersely brushing across the skin. My breaths felt short and dizzying, his body tracing mine, his bare chest pressed against my own broiling skin as his left hand tangled back in my hair, pulling me closer still.   
His fingers slipped between my legs, his thumb tracing an outline in the fold of exposed skin as he pulsed beneath me. My choked sound was seized by his mouth once more, his tongue jarring over mine as his fingers slid between my legs. They drummed slowly, quickening as my sounds broke over his mouth.  
He slipped his mouth off mine, his breath hitting my ear. I dropped my head to his neck biting the juncture of skin hard. He hissed, his balled fingers wrapping hard against my body, his breath brushing my shoulder in bursts. I shivered as he picked up the momentum, his body running my own like an instrument. He opened his fist to brush his palm against my clit, thrumming his fingers harder, his skin flexing against the muscle making my head spin, my breaths a burst in his neck. “Easy,” he said pulling my head back when I drew blood. His eyes danced across mine, he looked entertained by whatever he saw, snagging my mouth again and driving me onto my back. His left hand pulled my thigh back, spreading my legs as he rammed harder into my body. I moaned loudly into his mouth, my own sound startlingly distant. I moved to close my legs, his left hand pinning my thigh, his mouth breaching my mouth to kiss my neck, his teeth pinching my skin.  
My hands wove tighter into his hair still, my breath clipped and hitching in my chest. His fingers curled, my head banging on the floor when I brought it back. I could feel his body pressing between my legs, a hard knot behind his jeans, pressing as close to me as he could without taking off his pants. I wanted him to, but I also didn't want him to stop. I couldn't say either of these things with his mouth overtaking mine again swallowing down the little air it felt like I was getting. I could feel the hot wash of his mouth, the vibrating frenzy of his fingers packed between my legs, his chest hitching unevenly with the intensity of our breaths.  
His palm pressed harder into the sensitive nodule of skin, his arm stiffening as he jarred faster. My strangled sounds of pleasure bled into his mouth, my eyes flashing as my body rattled with the intensity of his, my chest plummeting with the exertion of my breath.   
I couldn't catch my breath, even after his hand slipped from between my legs, his lower half straddling mine. I could feel the sharp press of his jeans between my legs, my head dizzy with innate consuming want. His hands slipped into my hair, kissing me hard. He moved his fingers for his belt, the sudden rattle of the door in the frame stopping him. His mouth pulled off of me, both of our heads looking to the door, which shook hard in its frame. Outside the wind was a monstrous growl, swallowing all exterior sound.  
I knew they were there though, chipping away at my brief and intense encounter. Alex clamored off of me, grabbing the rifle from the couch. I stood up, jerking my jeans back on, feeling blindly for the crossbow.  
I wasn't wearing a shirt when the door came down against the wall from the roar of the wind and their fists, the cold air hitting me sharply. Alex fired, hitting the first walker point blank. I leveled the crossbow, my hand smarting from my scramble to my feet and the retrieval. The wrapping had come undone and it bled freely down my wrist, painting the floor beneath me as I fired the crossbow into the second zombie, backing up as they continued to fill the house.  
The next three burst in, a conglomeration of tangled limbs. One went flying forward, Alex moving backwards and firing at one of the standing walkers. My arm shook hard, aching with exertion – my arrow flew well off its mark, stabbing into the frame and splintering the wood. I made to reload it, my fingers uncooperative and trembling with adrenalin.  
Alex fired again, three quick rounds taking down the three trampling zombies. The one on the floor was continuing to crawl forward as he shot at the two more at the door. It's hands reached forward, digging into the floor boards. It was attempting to curl upwards, reaching out blindly and fumbling to its feet.  
I shot the crossbow, catching it in the middle of its head, the impact sending it spilling downwards and back, knocking the feet out from the walker behind it. It's head exploded with the impact of Alex's rifle, shotgun shells littering the floor as he reloaded.   
He rose the gun, and I rose the crossbow, firing in tandem. I hooked the female walker in the chest, his bullet pivoting a hole in her eye socket. She fell backward, her male counterpart straggling forward as I reloaded my arrow, Alex shooting a finalizing bullet at the center of its head.  
Ten were down, four more ambling for purchase. I didn't have anymore arrows, looking around me for something to set my hands on even as they screamed in agonized protest. I grabbed a fireplace poker, stepping backwards as one of the walkers hobbled forward. Alex shot at the ones at the door as I brought the poker over my shoulder, swinging it forward to lob him to the floor before he could bleed across the bare expanse of my chest. I brought back the poker, the sharp appendage interrupting his forehead. It stuck fast and I forced my barefoot on his shoulder, pressing downward as I jerked the poker back.  
Alex fired twice more, the last two zombies falling hard. My ears were throbbing from the blast of the shotgun, the terrible sound not made any easier to stomach with the silencer on when it was going off right next to your head. I moved the poker to my left hand, waiting for further emergence.  
Alex stalked to the door, peering out into the dark. The blizzard was wild outside, the world white. He reached for the door, doing his best to prop it back into the frame. It clicked uneasily into place, the fractured hinges leaving room for a wealth of wind. I slipped on my shirt, tripping back into my boots, cradling my hand as I hurried to get dressed.  
“I think that was it,” Alex said, looking to the door as he pulled his own shirt back over his head, stepping into his boots. “But I don't think that will hold if it's not. We'll switch back to the neighboring house and hole up.”  
He looked to me, whitening when he saw that I was covered in blood. “It's just my hand,” I muttered, somewhat embarrassed. It had painted almost everything within a foot of me.   
Alex moved over to look at my hand, avoiding touching the wound as he uncurled my fingers. “You split your stitches. I'll fix it when we move over.” He attempted to wrap the wound but the bandages were too dilute with blood to stick. He wrapped it against my body instead, helping me shrug into my coat and pinning my arm uselessly to my chest.   
“I can't fight like that. I need my right hand.”  
“I've got you,” he said, slipping into his own coat. He shouldered his pack, forced to abandon the fishing pole for the rifle. We moved out the backdoor, leaving behind fifteen walker bodies, my good hand laced in Alex's for good measure. The wind was howling, tossing snow about and making it impossible to see. I moved after him, crouching low in the snow.  
I could make out their shapes, staggering towards the cabin. Alex ignored the neighboring cabin, it was too close to the influx of walkers. We moved past the third cabin and our car, settling on a fourth we hadn't visited before. I couldn't voice my insecurities about it, he wouldn't be able to hear me if I tried and it was useless anyway. We were running out of options.  
Alex ascended the stairs, releasing me to break into the house. He picked the lock with a quick twist of the sword head in the tab-like lock, pushing in and leveling the sword immediately.  
The cabin was musky, reeking of dust and raccoon urine. It was abandoned, a for lease hunting cabin minus even wood for the fireplace. Maybe that was a good thing, it was impossible to tell what had led the walkers to us but I wasn't ruling out the smoke.  
Alex and I moved into the bedroom, closing a secondary precautionary door and clamoring onto the mattress. He helped me take off my coat, moving rapidly as he hunted down the nylon for the sutures and the thread. I couldn't blame him, my blood was flowing steadily, staining our clothes and dripping onto the bed.  
I hissed at the touch of the alcohol, the pain making me feel like I was floating away from my body. It was worse than before and I wondered with some agitation if it meant the wound had become infected. If I thought the alcohol hurt, the needle breaching my skin was agony. I cried out, biting onto my fist to keep back the scream of pain. Alex worked carefully, somehow able to maintain his composure and use it to finish quickly instead of being deterred by my obvious agony.   
I felt like I was going to faint when he finished the sutures, holding my fingers as he wrapped the wound. “You're alright,” he told me, in case I had decided otherwise. “Could be worse, right?”  
“It's hurts pretty fucking bad,” I muttered, collapsing against the springy mattress. I just wanted to close my eyes, move away from my pain, but it burned awfully. I didn't know how I'd ever sleep. My arm was sentient with its own pulse, the walkers nearby. Our sexual experience had been knocked aside as quickly as our card game.  
Alex dropped against the bed besides me, perhaps feeling the spin of my thoughts. “Close your eyes. I'll keep an eye out. Maybe get to use my new rifle some more.”  
“I won't sleep.”  
“Try.” He reached for the backpack, tucking it underneath my bad arm and extending the limb over the canvas lump. “Keep it elevated. That should help.”   
He moved back to his feet, disappearing into the living room so he could man the doors.  
By the time he checked back in, I was fast asleep. 

xxx  
The walkers were all over the place by the time we made it to the car, spread throughout the cabins as if summoned. I wasn't sure where they had come from, or why, keeping my eyes peeled for some kind of answer. We were near hunting and camping grounds alike, it might have been bad luck that drove them in our direction, or even mortal events on the other side of Taylor.  
Alex and I kept our eyes peeled, glad for our weapon yield but also glad to be leaving.

I decided I could get away with asking a few questions in the morning following our obvious change in dynamic. Alex wasn't glowering behind the wheel, so that was encouraging. I started easily enough. “What's your last name?” I asked as the car wound onto the high way, leaving Taylor well-behind.  
“Planning on looking me up in the phone book?” Alex asked, looking over the open mouth of the road. “Halacomb.”  
“It just feels like something I should know.” I turned to watch the cars sliding past, the walkers losing traction as the car left them behind. “Alexander Halacomb. That's professional.”  
“Professional Demon slayer and walker crusher,” he said, which was more than I usually got from him. He was in a good mood following our scavenge, never mind how we had been totally thrown off guard by the influx of walking dead. Usually, things like that left him smarting. We had handled it with minimal casualty, but Alex tended to over react, and so far he hadn't. I wondered if it was because of the gun, or what had transpired between us. He still didn't direct my question back, not entirely riveted by our game.  
“Now you ask me a question,” I reminded him.  
“Why?” His eyes flickered from the road to me, looking suspicious.  
“It can't hurt, can it?”   
“Just because we fooled around doesn't mean we need to exchange life stories.” He steered the car to the left, moving around a walker that was aiming right between the headlights. The car banged up against her hip, sending her sprawling with a meaty thump. Her call followed after the car, a falsetto of hunger.   
“Why are you so defensive? I asked your last name, not your life story.” I folded my right arm around myself, unable to reign in my left, it hurt too much to really move.   
“I don't like talking about myself. That's it.”  
“You don't like talking about, anything,” I said, fighting the urge to start spitting my words. “Except when you get mad, then you talk at me and I'm not allowed to say anything because my feelings are invalid.” How were we already fighting again? I pushed hair off my forehead, scowling.   
“If we're going to chat, at least ask me something interesting.”  
“Have you ever been diagnosed with anger management issues? Serious question.”  
“No,” he returned. . “I did get arrested for assault, once, but the charges were dropped.”  
“By who?”   
“It's my turn.” Alex engaged the car, lines of trees and wreckage tumbling behind us. I turned my head to examine a school bus near the middle of the road, doors forcibly ripped open, a backpack resting on the asphalt. It looked like it had been there a while, rapidly deteriorating. “How'd you end up at the farm house, the one you were at before I found you?”  
I spent a lot of time trying not to think about the farm house, Alex's words made my stomach drop into my knees. I forced myself to recover, hoping to brush through the question in the effective way he often did. “I walked there. I just was lucky, I guess. I didn't come across anything after my Mom. I thought she was just being, drunk and insane. On another level I knew that was, totally wrong. I'd seen the reports, I'd heart about the government attacks and the bombing of Henderson. I was in denial, locked her in the house and walked two blocks to the farm. Lucky she didn't bite me. Who got you arrested?”  
“My step dad,” delivered Alex. I realized I had worded my question in a way that left Alex with a simple one worded answer, too focused on preventing him from asking too much about me. I also really wanted to know what had happened. Alex had been the one demanding things be interesting.  
“Come on, why? What happened?”  
He hesitated. I could see him thinking about it and decided to shut my mouth while he mulled it over. He tongued his cheek. “Alright. My step father, Parker? He punched my brother in the face. I saw red, things got out of hand.”  
“I didn't know you had a brother.” Alex didn't correct my verb tense, his fingers agitated on the wheel. I could tell whatever he was talking about was something he didn't tread on lightly. “Your step Dad's the one who left those marks on your back?”   
Alex turned his head to examine a small group of walkers that followed after the car. “He's dead now, right?” I wasn't sure what made me say it. Alex looked to me and nodded, looking back to the road without further prompt.  
I wasn't great, at killing walkers, or being stealthy. But I'd always been good at people. Maybe I couldn't always diffuse them, but sometimes I felt this burst of intuition. The pieces would line up just right and click, the real picture emerging from beneath the wreckage scattered on top. It clicked, quietly into place. I licked my lip, trying to think of how to say what I was considering without setting Alex off.   
“Yes,” he said, with some finality besides me. I hadn't opened my mouth yet, and looked to him. “I did kill him, after the start. When things went out of control, and the government was falling. I came home and took my opportunity.”  
Alex had said to me before that he had killed a person before the start, and never thought twice about it with hard conviction in his voice. He had worded it cleverly then, deferring to the more recent kill of the bandits, who he probably never thought about either. He wasn't upset over them, so how could I be? In the same vein, how could I be upset over killing a man that I barely knew, who tried to kill him? He'd killed someone who he'd known most of his life.  
The silence in the car was heavy, stunning. “Do you ever think about it?”  
“Not really,” he said.   
I opened my mouth, not entirely sure of how to say what I was thinking. I didn't want to strand Alex. I wanted to know more. I understood despite the first instinct of revulsion. My own thoughts tumbled, and I found myself thinking of my own upbringing. The shadow in my closet that taunted me to this day, my mother. I spent a lot of time ignoring her existence, even when she was around. Preoccupied with all the surviving, she just never came up which was the one bright spot at the end of the world. But if Alex was going to share, I had to. I plunged past my reservations, leaning back into the seat of the car. “When my Mom was drunk, she was awful. And, there was this time that I was having a tremendously bad day. And I think about it all the time. It was storming like something out of a movie, no warning. I was supposed to be at the movies, but there were flash flood warnings so I was stuck inside and she was bitching, all day long about how much I didn't help around the house.” Outside the window a long dead stop light rolled past. A handful of walkers followed, lumbering after the car. They disappeared as the car wove up an incline. “She was on the couch, drinking right out of a gin bottle and the lights went out. She had it in her head that I'd turned them off. She was, hammered, at that point,” I traced the hair back around my ear. “She kept yelling at me to turn the lights back on. And I was hurt, and mad from earlier but something about her going on and on about the lights, I just got really frustrated. She wouldn't listen to me, I hadn't turned the fucking lights off. It was so stupid. If she would just listen to me she would get that, but she wouldn't, fucking, listen,” I said, the familiar metal taste of anger filling my mouth, squeezing in my chest. “She was just in my face, yelling about the lights and I felt her spit kind of flew out of her mouth and I just snapped, and shoved her. It wasn't the most dramatic shove, ever, but she was drunk and unbalanced and she went flying across the coffee table, knocking over bottles as she went. There was this crash, and the glass was breaking. And I'd never felt more calm, more clear,” I said, I could barely see the empty roads before us the momentum of the car shifting me in my seat as the vehicle steered down the center of a double-lane road, skating around another dead car. “She looked at me, stunned. Like she didn't know what had happened, just sitting there on the floor, surrounded by alcohol, and glass. And I'd found something, there, something in that quiet moment. And that clarity, that perfect clarity, it had a voice but no tone. And my hands were itching to make it final, to make her stop talking – because she was going off now, screaming at me about how much she hated me. It would have been, really easy. I could see it, I could taste it, it was on my skin and in my hair, like electricity in the air. I could have made it all stop, I could make it all stop. But then, that force of conscious brushed up against me. And she was bleeding, and it was dark, and I give myself credit for not going to get her bandages like she was screaming at me to do. I just left. Walked to the theater, which had closed hours earlier. I sat outside on the curb, the rain in my hair, and thought about how easy it would be to have killed her.”  
The silence following my admission was thoughtful. Alex's hand brushed over the wheel. “Did she keep drinking?”  
I almost laughed. “You mean that night? Or after? I came home and she was out cold on the couch. Started again with her morning beer before working the toll booth, came home and downed the case, like nothing had happened.”  
“You didn't go through with it, because it would feel awful. For you.” The car bumbled up past a house. Walkers were huddled over a fresh corpse, gnawing at the innards. One rose as the vehicle sloshed past, bloodstained sneer growling after us. “You're sensitive, and kind. It's why they liked you at Westerrose. You look like something that can be taken advantage of.” He paused. “You're not though.” He glanced at the walker, disappearing in the side mirror.   
“Will you tell me what happened?”   
Alex's tongue skated across his bottom lip, thinking. The silence lasted, spinning a lengthy tale in the air as the car rumbled over the entrance ramp and onto the wide highway.  
“It won't scare me,” I added. “I get it, Alex. He left scars all over your back.”  
“My legs,” he corrected. “My face,” he traced a faint pinch of skin by his eyebrow, something invisible to me. “Not my brother though.” His voice hardened. “Casey was his son, by blood. My mother had him the year after they got together. I thought he hit me, because he hated me. I was the odd one out. I was always getting into trouble with something at school. I thought he had a reason for all his anger. He wasn't a good husband, or father. He screamed at them constantly. But it was me that he hit. When I was young, I just took it. Then I branched out, grew up, I started hitting back. Our fights got ugly... My mother would be crying. The neighbors would close their windows. Casey would hide in his closet.”   
Alex paused, his eyes matter-of-fact. He was somewhere in a memory and here, scanning the road for threats. I was lost in the negative spaces around his reality. “I don't remember why he hit Casey. A bad grade? Showing too much emotion about a girl? I don't know, he was eleven. Casey took it, and it was like Parker enjoyed it. He started throttling him, and I got between them. Things escalated.” Alex pulled the car to a shuddering stop, eying something on the side-lines. I turned to follow his gaze, looking at the deer. She was standing on the median, chewing on the grass.  
It was a perfectly empty stretch of highway, bordered only by trees. No dead cars, no walkers. He shut off the car, folding his arms, watching the deer. A fawn skittered around her feet.   
“Tell me,” I said when the silence was pulling, Alex seeing a story he'd stopped sharing.  
“Casey played baseball. I found his bat. I think my neighbors called the police. Parker had me cuffed. My Mom just bawled, doing nothing, saying nothing. She wouldn't say Parker started it. She never did much of anything for us when it came to Parker. I had a conviction for shoplifting, from when I was like – twelve. You weren't so far off, with what you said, then.” He paused, and I felt a momentary stab of guilt, but he continued as if unbothered. “I had the bad kid look to me. The defiant stance, the ungodliness,” Alex ran his tongue across his teeth, turning his head to face the road. I thought of the tattoo on his hip bone, a streak of rebellion carrying him through his abuse with his head up, his defenses building. “Parker didn't press charges. I came home and my Mom had a bruise on her cheek. Wouldn't look at me, wouldn't talk to me at all. There was no point in staying anymore, so I moved out. I lived in a shitty apartment, blocks away from my family who I never saw. Sometimes Casey called me, mostly he didn't. We didn't see each other. We made plans but never met up. The years flew by, and I didn't see Parker at all. But I didn't lose any of that anger.”  
Alex's arms unfolded, fingers around the wheel again. I watched him, waiting. He didn't look to me. “My Mom invited me over for her birthday, in September, before the end of everything. Casey was starting his senior year in high school, I hadn't seen him in years. I came by, and the house was a shit-hole. My Mom had a black eye she'd thrown concealer over. Casey looked like a man, but he held himself like a boy, spoke only when spoken to, kept his head down. Parker was the King at the head of the table, he lead the conversations, he laughed too loud. They stepped lightly, cringed. I went home. He tried to shake my hand, but I wouldn't. A day later, the news was raving about an experimental late stage rabies vaccine. The day after that, the trial moved on to people. The fourth day the people who were trialed were in to the hospital with high fevers, numbness, vomiting and wildly hungry. Day five and the infection was spreading like wildfire. You remember.”  
We were both watching the deer now. She turned to examine the woods, pausing. Her fawn mimicked her motions. The fawn dropped her head before her mother, she almost reluctantly returned to scavenging the dead grass.  
“I went to get my family, figured we'd head to Verona. Parker was drinking, on the couch. He told me it was too late. They'd gotten themselves killed...” The deer rose her head in our direction now, as if noticing the car suddenly. She stared after it, frozen in thought, the fawn mimicking her motions a second time. Alex's hands were smoothing over the wheel, his fingers tracing circles in the leather. “I had a gun, took it off a corpse. It was too easy. I asked him what happened. I think they were scavenging for food. He didn't say, but the cabinets were completely empty. There was a case of beer. I think that my Mom brought it back, after she was already bitten. I think Casey probably tried to save her, probably even killed the walker. His entry wound, was here, on his forearm.” Alex ran his finger over the wrist of his right arm, carefully. “But these are guesses. What I know, is that I shot Parker, in the chest. He died, instantly. And I heard them, in the bedroom, scratching at the door. I couldn't leave them like that.”   
I didn't know what to say. Alex didn't like to talk, anyway. My apologies would mean nothing to him. I unclipped my seat belt instead, slipping over the console to knock down his barriers. 

xxx  
Alex  
Eve was everywhere, her hands in my hair, her fingers gripping my shirt, her mouth careful and exacting, as if she she could swallow the pain. I was content to kiss her, the bruised feeling of my over-worked lips oddly sensual, a deep ache inside our every interaction. I rammed my tongue into her mouth, her hips clenching against my lap, the fabric of our clothes keeping things from escalating. I knew she couldn't take off my belt, and if I did she would follow but the place wasn't right, our position on the road precarious and open.   
I slipped my hand into the back pocket of her pants, pulling her over the pitch in my jeans, her sound a muffle quake in my mouth. She was so loud, it made it difficult to keep any blood-flow in my brain. I snaked my right arm into her hair, disconnecting her jaw from mine somewhat abruptly. “As much as I would love to fuck you against the steering wheel, it would be loud, and stupid. We need to stop.”  
“Right,” she said, her eyes darting over mine, her lips pinned by her teeth. I could see the nervous tumble of thoughts in her eyes, things she could say, should say and the instinct to bat them all down. Her flushed face made it easier to grin, her own pinned smile unraveling across her face. She brushed at her cheek as she disengaged from my lap, pulling herself into her own seat with her left hand and twisting into a normal seat, the compact warmth of her figure leaving with her. The deers were watching, stock-still. I engaged the car, the rumble of the engine was the final straw. She turned, rapidly darting into the cluster of woods, her fawn cantering behind.

 

xxx

Fern was kneeling near the window, I could see the cluster of her curls between the slats of the blinds. It was a stupid risk to take at the rumble of the car's engine. There was definitely a more subtle way, but I staved off the wave of fury it sent through me, shaking my head.   
She greeted Eve with a large apologetic hug, her eyes wet and running. “I was so worried, I knew that the snow probably held you up – it was so cold!” she breathed, glancing to me as I filed in behind Eve, letting the pack collect on the counter. She didn't have any words of worry for me, and I didn't blame her. Either way she didn't seem disappointed to see I was alive, another nearly smart thing. Even if she didn't like me I offered security, and if she could recognize that she would have to pick up a weapon and get her hands dirty at some point.   
I opened the pack to unload our arsenal as Eve reassured Fern everything had been fine, while Fern exaggerated how not fine she was here alone. “It was scary,” she finalized. “Every sound. And I kept waiting for you to come back. And the wind was shaking the door. I thought if one of those things saw it they might try to come in.”  
“You'd be defenseless if they did,” I delivered straight, my voice oddly steady.  
“I know,” she said, somewhat hushed. She fidgeted, fingers winding in her curls just to collapse and tweak at her clothing. “I want to learn. Okay? I'm ready.”  
Eve offered her an encouraging smile, Fern smiled back, the corners twitching with uncertainty. “Then let's go,” I said, re-shouldering the rifle. Fern's eyes enlarged at the prospect of leaving immediately.  
“Don't- don't you guys want to sit down? I mean you've been out all day. And in a Blizzard..”  
“There was a lot of sitting, involved in that driving thing.” I looked her over, her face twisted with discomfort. She wanted to retract her words. “We can go tomorrow,” I relented, removing the pack from my shoulder and returning it to the counter.   
“Really? You're letting it go?”  
“Don't push it,” I said, heading into the back of the store to find something to eat. Fern looked after me, baffled. 

xxx  
Eve

“He's in a good mood? That's possible?” Fern shook her head, deflecting the insanity. She had been moving around since I'd stepped through the door, and she froze suddenly, looking horrified. I spun, dropping my hand to the hilt of my sword but there was nothing behind me. I turned back to her at a loss, her jaw stuck half open. “Your neck,” she said, her mouth barely moving.  
I threw a hand up to the mark on my neckline. “No, relax, it's not – it's, a hickey,” I muttered, my face turning a royal red.   
Fern's relief was palpable, then her mouth opened somewhat scandalized, she flashed a grin at the color filling my face. “I kind of figured you guys were fucking. You fight like cats and dogs. That only works if there's chemistry.”  
I felt like she was basing this off of something she'd seen in a movie, shaking my head in the contrary. “We weren't, fucking. We haven't.. fucked,” I clarified, trying not to be awkward. I didn't want to talk about this but I didn't want to leave things as they were. She looked so much like a child, with her crazy curls and intense make up job. There wasn't an enormous age disparity between the two of us, but the maturity jump was high, making the conversation feel weird. “This is really weird to be talking about with you.”  
“Who else are you going to talk to?” she shrugged. “I saw you shoot a guy. I think we can talk about sex.”  
She did have a point and I wondered what exactly I was basing my reservations on, other than the crawling feeling of my skin. “That's fair, I guess.”  
“Plus, like I don't know about that stuff. I was a normal high school girl before the cult thing. I had friends and stuff. Not really, boyfriends, but I didn't have my head in the sand. I am fourteen, after all, not ten.” she impressed, as if this were some almighty information. “So, you guys have been together since the world started falling to pieces all romantic-like, and you haven't had sex?”  
“No sex,” I reminded her, unloading my pack onto the counter-top. My hand stung wildly, even though I'd avoided it completely in the gesture. “And it is not even remotely romantic.”  
“Then how have you two not murdered each other?” She folded her arms onto her hips, looking down the aisle to see where Alex had vanished to. “You guys probably should. Maybe he's actually able to hold a conversation. I hear it's the key to most things. It seemed to be all anything was about, before it all became about, well, zombies.”   
“Thanks for the tip.” I unloaded my cross bow with my left hand, cradling my right to my body. Fern shifted to look at me.  
“Oh, come on. He was nice for a whole half a minute, and you look pretty relaxed.”  
“Fern!” I pantomimed putting a hand on my sword. She grinned.  
“Come on, there's nothing good on TV. There's no TV. It's spicy. We can be friends. You're not that much older than me. You're what, eighteen?”  
“I'm twenty one.”   
“Jeez, really?” Fern looked me over, as if she expected a dramatic transformation to take place somewhere after the years stopped ending in -teen.   
“No, I am lying so I can buy alcohol.”   
“I just think we should be friends. I mean, if I'm not going to be protected from the horrors of the world, why do I need to be protected from things like details?”  
“I feel like you're not thinking this through. Also, because they're my details.” I slipped the bottle of Oxy into my hand, dry swallowing half of a pill in the hopes of taking the edge off.   
“You alright?” Fern's expression twisted towards serious as she followed my motions.  
“Yeah. Split my stitches,” I admitted. “I'm honestly feeling a bit burned out. I think I'm going to lay down.”  
“Yeah, okay,” Fern smiled. “Think I can get away with trying on some sunglasses or is Alex going to call me names?”  
“Just don't push it,” I suggested, slipping around her to find the alcove of the store stuffed with our meager bed-stock. Alex had taken the blanket from the car, but it was rancid with my blood. I didn't care much about the smell, wrapping it around myself. It was hard to foster a conversation with Fern when my hand felt like it was trying to rip itself off from the rest of my body. It hurt worse than it had the day before, and I hoped sleep would offer me any small reprieve from the pain.  
I was exhausted too, it felt like I had barely slept at the cabin. I felt cold all over, clammy and heavy. My hand ached throughout me, but through the haze of exhaustion I couldn't focus. As soon as I draped my head over the stock-pile of stuffed animals, I seemed to be tumbling into sleep.

xxx  
The sound of the pistol surprised me, even though I was the one holding it. It bisected the air, interrupting the walker at the head, splintering the wall by the pharmacy counter.  
The noise surprised Alex too, who jerked up from what he had been reading, looking at me standing there with the gun.  
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” He stood up, wresting the gun from my hand in a quick blurry motion. I had no idea where he had come from and was stunned by the pain in my hand as I tried to steal it back.   
“It's not falling, it's not dead! Shoot it!” He turned to look at what I was looking at, the long skinny shadow of a monster on the wall. When he looked back to me the fury on his face had absolved, he jerked the gun away, pushing back my hands. “Eve, look at me! Look at me!”  
Fern came running over. I shouted for her to watch out and she looked around her wildly, seeing nothing. She looked to Alex who had tossed the gun down, pinning my arm to my side, his other hand flashing up against my forehead. “She's on fire.”  
“What?” Fern was confused and panicked. “Did she shoot something? Aren't they going to hear that?”  
There was a smashing sound as fists banged up against the glass. I jerked my head to look at them, stunned as to how the walker had gotten outside. “They can teleport,” I whispered, trying to pull my hand free from Alex's. “We need to get them.”  
“What's wrong with her?”  
“I think her hand's infected.” Alex was squinting to get a good look at my bound hand, but he couldn't unhinge his flashlight while containing both of my wrists. There was another bang on the glass and a loud raspy growl. “Help me!” he snapped at Fern, who hurried over and pulled the flashlight from the bag to illuminate us.   
“I am not infected!” I snapped, trying to draw my hand back. Alex grabbed my wrist tightly, the pain in the hand flaring up as he unwound the bandage. “Fuck,” he muttered as the wound appeared, the skin around it streaked tight and red and climbing towards my under arm, the open mouth of a sore leaking a sour clear fluid.  
“What do we do?” Fern looked frantic, her voice pitched high. There was another bang at the glass as a second pair of fists drew downward, the glass rattling with a boom. I could hear them, and I could clearly hear a door opening, whipping my head to look at the back entrance to see if they had opened the door. I tried to reel back but Alex was stronger, grabbing me by my upper arm to keep me stationed.   
“Stop moving! Take her sword.” Fern drew the sword from my holster as I tried to shake them off, furious. Alex's hand pinched against the bone and I gave up just as suddenly. The lack of motion seemed to zap the last of my energy. I never wanted to move again. “Do you know anything medical, at all?” He looked to Fern for answers, who looked back at him slack-jawed.  
“..No? They taught me at school that praying could help...,” she trailed off at the look on Alex's face. The glass rattled again and she jumped.   
“Pick up the gun. If they break the glass, shoot. Aim for the brain.” He missed the terrified look on her face as he pushed me back against the counter, letting go of my arms carefully. “You sit still. I mean it, don't move an inch.” He loped over the consultation counter, looking for something. I examined the lights in the store, everything had a dark purple hue. It was easy to miss in all the dark but it seemed important to remember now. I watched the colors as Alex shuffled around by the counter, coming back with a book. He held the flashlight under his neck as he rifled through the pages. The glass flexed and I made to stand, he grabbed the back of my shirt pulling me back down.   
“It's probably a blood infection,” he said, reading fast. I could see him skimming the text out of the corner of my eye, as if it were unimportant. I shivered, feeling cold. There was a terrible cracking sound as a pair of fists hit the glass again, Fern screamed.  
Alex was rifling beneath the counter for something, loping the backpack onto his shoulder. “Grab her bag,” he instructed Fern, who did not move. “Come here, Eve.” He pulled on my shoulders, indicating that I should swing my legs around the corner. “Fern, take her fucking bag!”   
She shook her head, jumping over the counter to join us. “Keep her there,” he snapped, bounding over the corner to grab the pack, which was closer to the window than Fern would have liked. The glass shattered, two mottled fists breaking through the shards, flexing. The walkers began to tumble into the small space, like an infestation. I stared, feeling unsteady on my feet, suddenly too cold to move at all.  
If I kept still I'd be okay, but Alex wouldn't let me keep still. He grabbed my upper arm, dragging me after them as we ran out the back door of the pharmacy, the front window coming down with an incredible racket, the glass panes surrendering to the floor in a series of shatters.  
Alex pushed me into the car, looking to Fern. “When I tell you to do something, you fucking do it. If she's not in this car when I come back, I will personally put a bullet through your head. Stay. Here.”   
He moved back to the pharmacy. I tried to yell something after him, going for the door but Fern drew my hand back, shaking her head no. “He's gonna get killed!” My heart felt frantic in my chest. I was shivering hard, huddling my shoulders to stave off the chills. “Where is he going? What's going on?”  
“It's okay,” she said gently, her voice almost calm, even if her face was not. She brushed the hair out of my face. “He is just grabbing something. He will be right back.”  
He wasn't right back though, I could hear the bang of the gun going off, then nothing. I put my hand back on the door, pulling away from Fern hard as the back door of the pharmacy finally flew open, Alex moving at a run. The door shut, closing on mottling hands. I watched the fingers turn, digging into the door as they wrenched it open, stalking after in a growing formation.   
The car door slammed behind Alex, his foot levying the gas. He had a pill bottle in his hand and tossed it back to Fern, who caught it before it could dive to the car floor. “Give her two. Antibiotics,” he said, throwing the book into the passenger side seat. I wondered why I wasn't sitting up there, as Fern pulled off the cap of the bottle and tried to convince me to swallow the pills.  
“Here, Eve, swallow these, alright?”   
“I'm too cold,” I argued, looking out the window.   
The pharmacy looked weird, the building distorted and stretching, a large green army piling out the window while the glass fell. A large section came down, directly onto one of the green demons, cutting through their abdomen but not stopping them as they continued crawling after us, leaving their lower body behind, distended intestines sliding along the ground.   
“Take the pills,” snapped Alex, there was no room for argument in his voice.   
“He's a jerk,” I told Fern, swallowing the pills hard. “Happy? Now I can't breathe.” I dropped my head against the glass. It was cold on my forehead, which was oddly comforting despite the chill that wracked my whole body. I closed my eyes, the frenetic jerk of the car shaking me as we rocketed down the street, walkers chasing after our tail-lights.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Sorry for such a delay! I've written a fair amount from this point, just been so busy with real life. Hopefully this chapter is worth it!

xxx  
I felt achey and awful, my mouth tasting rubbery and strange. It hurt to move my legs or lift my arms, the junctures between my muscles throbbing. I wondered if that was what it felt like to be a walker, a feverish pain striking me with my every movement.  
Time had been wavering the past few days. I had recognized light, brief and startling in all the dark. Then there was a bed, which was warm and comfortable. I hadn't felt scared there, wondering briefly if the world had gone back to normal.  
When my head was clear again I realized we'd just moved into a house. Fern had rubbed hair back from my head in the car while Alex cleared the house, my head like a furnace, my mind anywhere but physically bound to me. My fever traveled down from the pike of a hundred and six downward, and finally back into the normalcy range when the antibiotics kicked into effect.

The thermometer beeped under my tongue, an oddly modern sound in the dark destroyed house. The kitchen had been the scene of a more gruesome murder, though Alex had stuffed the dead walkers into the fridge considerately. “Hundred,” I delivered. “I don't even think that counts as a fever. I guess you got the right antibiotic.”  
Alex had been worried. I'd seen it in his eyes, and the worry had put him on edge. I could tell he'd been taking it out on Fern, who was no longer crying when hurt but instead glowering at him every time he spoke.  
“And, you're feeling less like pulling a gun on me?”  
“Again, sorry,” I muttered as he dropped to a seat next to me on the bed, accepting the instrument and dropping it onto the bed. The bed still wore the faint perfume-y smell of its last occupant, though the sheets were now bloody and dirty from my nights of tossing and turning.  
He said nothing, pulling my injured arm into his lap to fawn back the fingers, inspecting the clean bandage. It still stung, but the hate was gone from the wound. It seemed to finally be closing, the swelling somewhere in the realm of normal at last. Alex traced away from the wound, across the top of the gauze rather carefully. I licked my lips, trying to work up the courage to find my voice. “Thank you,” I said finally, with a loose shrug. I didn't want him to get mad. “For, looking after me. I mean, you went back in that pharmacy for the antibiotics. Which wasn't really logical, and I know you're all about the logical thing to do. It couldn't have been easy to, overcome that.”  
“It was surprisingly easy,” he said, his fingers tracing the skin above the bandage, carefully. “I didn't even think about it.”  
I didn't know what to say, the weight of the words somehow lightening the overall burden of everything in me. I felt calm, and like I might destroy the precarious moment if I opened my mouth at all. “I guess you don't hate me,” is what I settled on.  
“Why would I hate you?” He looked up from my hand to find me. “I'm not hard on you because I hate you.”  
“I know.” I nipped my lip, wishing I hadn't opened my mouth. “It's just hard to feel the difference sometimes. I know, you're trying to make me into a survivor. Like you. But sometimes, you're kind of harsh, and I'm not sure.”  
His head brushed against mine, fingers draping in my hair, tugging a little less than gently. His mouth compressed over mine, tasting metallic and raw. His tongue ran across my lips, my hand still folded in his hands. The kiss was gentle, and still it made me feel tipsy and drunk, tethered by a hair to myself as he traced the pattern of my palette, not satisfied until I was vibrating under the intensity of the kiss.

xxx  
Outside, the snow was finally melting. The temperature was cold, but it was officially February. Even after the end of the world, the month had to respect that the snow would stop, eventually.  
And with the melting of the snow, Fern's final excuses dissipated in the open air. “It's time,” Alex argued, annoyed. Both our packs were ready, waiting at the door to be loaded into the car. Fern was looking uneasy, one hand on her stomach. I was sure she wasn't feigning feeling ill, but in this case it was nerves working her up. “Maybe, maybe I got Eve's blood infection? I had a paper cut, yesterday..,” she trailed off, the weakness in her excuse not holding up.  
Alex wasn't hearing it anyway. “We are going, now. And I can toss you at the next walker we see, or you can approach it. Those are your choices.”  
He was standing by the packs, his arms folded. He was dressed for the event, his clothes warm and flexible to allow some agility. He was determined, his patience rapidly deteriorating as Fern tried to stave off the inevitable.  
I was dressed for the occasion, in fitting jeans and a clean sweater. I wore a jacket over it that was warm but not bulky, my sword accessible underneath the flap in the fabric. I was feeling somewhat refreshed and clean, on the incline from my infection. Alex hadn't been all that abrasive, but he hadn't been having his anxieties tested by me side-stepping walkers. Now, we were going back into the thick of it and he was bound to be on edge.

xxx  
We weren't in the car ten minutes when Fern exclaimed she had to pee. We were on a winding stretch of highway, that ran into waist high grass. Already the world next to the roads was becoming overgrown and infested with bugs. I could see flies flitting about in a grotesque manner, hopping from reed to reed.  
“Are you serious?” Alex sighed as he jerked the car to the side of the road hard. “Hurry up.”  
I slipped out of the car after Fern, scanning the woods for walkers. The juncture of highway was quiet and I was unconcerned, letting Fern hobble ahead with a roll of paper to have some privacy. I leaned up against the tree, inhaling the smell of being outside. I really appreciated it, despite the flit of bugs and gnats I had to smack from my eyes. The house had been musty and foul with decomposition, it was nice to be inhaling clean air.  
I leaned back into the base of the tree. Something cold and metal touched the back of my neck. I could hear the click of the gun, reloading right at the back of my ear. “Not a twitch,” said a male voice. “Hands in the air.”  
I brought my hands out, flat, my heart racing in my chest. I hoped Fern could hear the foreign voice, and wouldn't pop out of the grass and get us both killed. The man grabbed for my wrists, his other dirty hand embedding in the back of my hair to hold me straight. A second pair of feet took long steps around us. How had I not seen them? Were they going to shoot me dead, or worse?

A narrow female face appeared, she was smiling devilishly, her hair pulled back high on her head. Her skin was a dark sorrel color, smeared with dirt and blood. She didn't have the look of a plain bandit, there was something dark glinting in her eyes. She lifted a dagger, almost flippantly flexing it in her hands. “Hey, beautiful,” she said, her voice a purr. “You alone?”  
“I'm alone,” I said, fighting to keep my breathing under control. My heart was a pattern in my chest. “Funny,” she teased the point of the blade across the fingers of her opposing hand. “The guy by the car said the same thing.”  
There was a crackling sound in the undergrowth, Alex cursing loudly as two men jerked him forward, a gun pointed to his temple, his hands were behind his back – bound and held.  
The man behind her laughed, she stepped forward, tracing the blade under my jawline. “Not a mark on her. He's been taking good care of her.” She leaned in, her breath on my face. “You been safe and sound, Sophie?”  
“My name is Eve,” I said, forcing my voice to stay controlled and tight. She smiled, as if entertained I had offered the information, as if it meant anything at all to her.  
Her dagger traced my ear, my breath short uncontrolled bursts. I knew what she was going to do. There was no avoiding it.  
“There isn't much to her Ally, she's all bones,” said the man who was holding my wrists. His grip was tight, bruising the skin and bone, more than that my recently closed wound ached terribly.  
“But look how perfect that face is,” Ally purred again. “It's not good to have such a pretty face. I am gonna do you a favor, Eve. Girl to girl. Does your boyfriend want to watch?”  
The man behind her laughed, curt and hard.  
I'd been as brave as I could be and began to struggle, screaming obscenities as she gripped under my jaw, the blade cutting into my skin. “Don't you fucking touch her!” Alex was yelling, throwing his weight against the men securing him. I didn't see him falling, simply the shape of their legs kicking at him laying in the dirt while he screamed and I shrieked, my vision running red as she cut across my face.

xxx  
Hank had held my wrists tight, bored with my efforts to even try as he stifled a yawn and forced me into the back of the car with him, ignoring my protesting screams. The car rolling forward slowly as Alex disappeared in the long grass, the men grunting with effort as they beat him out of consciousness.  
I hadn't been able to tell if he was breathing, as hard as I'd tried to. My left eye was covered in a quickly-drying red film, the other without red obstruction had been blurry with agonized tears.  
I had to assume that he was still alive, and be strong. Fern hadn't come back up from the grass, perhaps aware of what had happened, or maybe devoured before Ally had so much as set the blade to my skin.  
I had to assume she was still alive too.  
I had to be strong. I knew the worst was not over.  
“Shut your mouth before I shut if for you,” growled Hank and I cut down on my screams, biting on my lips. My eyes were tearing, the water stinging along the dredges in my face.  
“I think Carson will appreciate it,” Ally said as if I weren't there. They slipped from the vehicle, I was dragged along into the back seat of a golf cart by my wrists. The woman swung around, taking the front. I couldn't see anything clearly, my vision dilute with blood. My face stung from the corner of my eye to the edge of my lip, a nearly cyclical shape. “Hank, Can you tell it's a C?” she turned to address the man holding my wrists in the back of the golf cart, who shifted his head to her then looked back at me, reflectively.  
“No fucking way. Just looks like a bloody mess.”  
“He's so rude,” she said with a soft sigh, pulling the cart forward. I shivered, an uncontrolled burst in the cold air hitting the back of the cart. I'd lost my hat while they were manhandling me, and after stripping me of the sword they hadn't offered back my jacket. The wind stung as it danced across my face, but I didn't cringe.  
I was numb, completely unfeeling. My terror had gone so full-force that I was left with emptiness. My decimated face was a fact. Alex, on the ground bleeding and mute was a fact. I'd seen his eyes, swollen and blackening, a hint of a scar on his back where they kicked at his spine. I'd struggled, as if I could reach for him. As if getting to him would stop the assault.

Hank man-handled me from the golf-cart, dragging after Ally in the waist high grass. I didn't help him, dragging my feet and pulling but he yanked me forcibly back, scowling at the wear in his arms but braced to my every deflection.  
We were approaching a colony of tents, the perimeter guarded by men in full armor. They didn't pay me a second look as I was dragged bleeding through the heart of the tents, to a small graying trailer. Ally skipped ahead, bounding up the small steps to wrap on the door. Hank shoved me downward, pinning my legs with his knee as he bound my hands behind my back with a rope.  
The trailer door opened, a man with lofty hair and a squarish beard appearing at the door, he was smoking a cigarette and pushed it to the side to greet Ally with a kiss. She grinned, stepping back to model me off. “Look what I brought you.” She moved to my side, tilting my head upward, the blood running down my face. “Now, don't lie – what letter is that?”  
The man inhaled from his coffin nail, I glared into his face with my one good eye as he expelled a cloud of smoke. “C?”  
“Yes!” She slapped her hands together, grinning. “I knew he'd get it. Carson knows everything,” she said giving me a soft nudge with her foot.  
My calves were throbbing from Hank's knee, the lower half of my leg going numb from the cut in circulation. I kept as still as possible, reducing myself to the glare in my eyes. I was nothing else.  
“How's the perimeter?” Carson asked her.  
“Clear now,” she said with a shrug. “We found her and the man. There were ten biters by the tracks. Bill's segmenting them now.”  
“Medium Rare,” Carson said, as if it made perfect sense. “Frankie always overcooks the ones that have any meat on them. He ain't wasting another loin on me.”  
The world seemed to shift, the dire connotation of their words sinking in. Alex. Alex with his dark eyes and his precise fingers, with his agitated shift of his head and quiver of a smile. Alex who saved my life, and stitched my hand.  
My words died. My stomach fell. The color left my face as I floated above us. A dark bloody-haired girl, sinking into the soil.  
“And you are?” Carson continued.  
“On my way to assist,” she drawled, somewhat testily. “Of course.”  
“Then be on with it,” Carson said. Ally paused then turned, walking away without further words. Her frustration permeated the air around her.

I stared vapidly, stunned, lost. Carson put his cigarette out on the arm of his shirt, looking at me, appraising. “Maybe I could use you to pick my teeth.”  
Get it together, said Alex's voice in my head. Pay. Fucking. Attention.  
“I think she cuts the face, so I won't fuck 'em. Should have seen what she did to the last one.” Carson's eyes rose to Hank, who was still pinning my legs under his. They were pulsing, dead in the half devoid of blood.  
“Sucks. She has a nice body.”  
“Want her?” Carson scratched at his facial hair, Hank finally edging off the back of my legs, wrenching me to my feet like I was the parcel they seemed to be talking over.  
“Nah, her face is all fucked up. Looks like a fucking walker.”  
“Don't gotta fuck her face,” Carson pointed out and they laughed. Hank spun me, looking me over. I glared into the horizon, the waist high grass swaying in the breeze. By the tree-line I could see an Infected, stumbling towards the camp.  
“Yeah. Alright.” His words seemed to echo in my head.  
“Shoot her when you're done.” Carson turned, heading down the juncture between the campers, disappearing as he rounded the corner. I didn't turn my gaze from the trees.

xxx  
Alex  
My head felt warm against the concrete floor, but it could have been the blood. It pooled around my head, from the jagged cuts on my face left from the steel tips of their boot. The room was dark besides the light from the window, made darker still by the contractions of my eyes, the swelling like a shadow on the ceiling.  
I ran my tongue over my lips tasting the blood, my hands pressed behind my back.  
The door swung open, letting in a breath of light. The girl with the high ponytail moved into the room humming, stepping beneath the spilling light from the window. We were separated by the large grid bars of my cage, some wall length storage locker in the world before.  
“You up yet, dumpling?” Ally ran her fingers against the bars. “I suppose rack of ribs would be more fitting. Maybe sausage.” She grinned, her teeth like razor blades.  
“You hurt her, and I'll kill you.” My lungs ached to expand, Ally swung her head back as she laughed.  
“Don't worry silly. Evie's just playing with the boys. Then back on up to Eden.” She pointed skyward, still wearing her artificial smile. I stared beneath my purple eyelids, my hatred a hot wave in my chest. “I never get to make that joke. It was clever. Too bad my only audience is the dinner.”  
There was a loud gunshot out the way, she waggled her eyebrows at me, turning around to the noise. “I guess play time's over.”  
I jerked forward, slipping my hands between the bars to wrap my hands around her throat. I pulled her back, smashing her head up against the bars. She let out a startled gasp, her mouth opening into a scream. “Shhhh,” I hushed almost soothingly, clamping a hand over her mouth as I bent her arms behind her back, pinning them. “We're just going to play a game too, Ally.” I brought the hand that pinned her in, tying her wrists to the bars with the rope I'd been bound with. The nail file had seemed to take forever to escape the hole at the cuff of my shirt, longer still to rip away at the rope that bound my wrists. My hands finally free I collected her jaw into my hand, running the the nail file gently against her lower lid. Her face trembled in my arms, I constricted them tighter. “You win, you get to keep your eye. Where is she?”

xxx  
Eve  
I screamed obscenities as Hank dragged me towards the woods, hoping to alert any walker in the area. He seemed to have seen this coming and spun my to hit me hard, banging across my cheekbone. I spit in his face and he grabbed beneath my chin, crushing into my teeth. The blood from my face ran a rivet into my mouth. A matching string of red-tinged saliva ran down his cheek.  
He threw me down hard. My ribs hit against the boulder and he clamored behind me, drawing a hard knot of fabric into my mouth from the back of my head. I shook my head back and forth, writhing as he pinned his chest against my back, laughing. “I like 'em with a little fight. It's spunky.”  
My heart thundered inside my chest, rogue and wild with flight, like it could leave my body. I drew my wrists apart as best as I could but they were stuck in the binding.  
Hank went to pull up my shirt, which snagged on my arms. He felt around for his blade, cursing when he realized he didn't have it. “You try anything, I'm gonna rip your ears off.” He began to work the rope between my wrists, his knees pinning into my numbing calves. He quickly grabbing my hands as soon as they were free in one hand, ripping my shirt upward and over my head. He tossed it to the ground, and I tried to jerk my arms away from him, the gag drying out my mouth between my lips as I screamed obscenities. He threw my arms into the boulder, where they vibrated with a terrible pain, the rock hitting against the round bone of my forearm.  
He retied them quickly, and tightly, his hand running over my chest and squeezing, his laughter in my ears. I could smell him, and it made me choke on my gag with disgust.  
He made for his belt, the loud sound of the metal rattling as he pulled the leather from the hoops. I felt him fumbling for the buttons, the zipper making a thin scraping sound as it came down, shifting his weight off my leg to work down his jeans.  
With the weight off my leg, I brought it back hard, aiming between his legs. The angle was awkward but the contact of my boot at his crotch instant. He grabbed for his groin and I spun, bringing my knee into his chin hard.  
Hank's right hand cradled his junk, his left hand grabbing me by the calf and jerking me downward. I fell onto my back hard, the air collapsing from my lungs at the impact. He crawled over me like a walker, unfastening my jeans. He didn't seem to care about my fucked up face anymore, still massaging the area between his pants into arousal as he slid down the denim  
My arms were bound up over my head. But I could move my arms themselves, even with my wrists stuck together.  
I tilted my head back, looking for anything I could use..“Come on,” scowled Hank, slapping at his sore junk. His hand grasped the fabric at the end of my underwear, jerking down. I wrapped my fingers around the boulder, it stuck easily in the small gap between my wrists. “Here we go,” Hank breathed, shifting into position between my legs. He bent his head downward, the skin of his penis brushing against the entrance of my body.  
I brought down the rock hard, screaming into my gag. In a blind fury I brought it down again and again, smashing into the spot on the back of his head twice before he knew what had happened. The strength of the blow was maddening, his body collapsed hard against mine, knocking the air from my lungs. I could feel the weight of his thigh between my bare legs, his blood painting my face.  
Tears streamed down my face with my own blood, the cut smarting, my cheekbone radiating with heat from the blow. I tilted my head backwards, a soft snapping sound forcing me to look forward again.  
There was a soft bellow, a grayish foot crunching a leaf. It was bare and bloodied, interrupted at the center with a bullet. This didn't deter it, it wobbled forward in another jerking motion, letting out a hissing wheeze as it approached.  
My breath felt shallow, my head spinning. My arms were still above my head, cradling the red-streaked rock. My clothes were still around my thighs, Hank's body pinning me. I could feel his gun below my pelvis, but with my hands tied I didn't know how I was going to get to it. I shifted the jagged rock as gently as I could, feeling for a sharp edge with my thumb. The leaves next to my body shifting from the walker's foot as it lowered itself over the body, dropping its hands to Hank's back and ripping apart.  
His body has been breathing, ever-so-shallowly. As the blood ran a rivet down my side his breath slowed then stopped completely, the slurping sound of the walker and occasional snapping of his bones interrupting the stony silence, her hands entering to spread apart the skin and devour the abdomen.  
I scissored the rock against the rope, my heart vibrating in my chest. I could feel the twine relenting, ever so softly. As the last twinge of rope fell away, the support keeping my wrists restrained slightly broke and my hand twitched. I froze.  
A rib snapped from inside the naked corpse. I moved the rock into my palm and hefted it at the tree line.  
There was an audible thump as it bumped against the ground, but the sound wasn't loud enough to attract her attention. Her head came out, dripping with scarlet, intestinal juices painting around her face. She dropped her mouth to the back, ravenous as she began to consume around the spine.  
This was going to be tricky. Trickier. The walker was almost on top of me. I couldn't get the gun unless I put my hand almost directly beneath it, under Hank. It was a motion that couldn't be missed.  
I'd have to be careful. Perfect. Now was not the time to fuck up.  
I brought my left hand down slowly, barely daring to breathe. Coming all the way up from above my head made the distance mighty, at any chance I risked attracting her and getting ripped apart, consumed with my pants down, bare chested, mouth gagged, a dead rapist hindering my air.  
My hand moved beneath Hank's body, near the pressure of his thigh still pressed between my legs. The gun was an inch lower, still wrapped in the holster of the jeans he had jerked down. I could almost just reach it.  
My middle finger brushed against the back of the gun, the metal cold against my hand. I tried to hook it but my finger rebounded, my nail scraping along the top of the gun.  
The angle wasn't workable. This plan had failed me.  
I couldn't chicken out, and before I could work out a fail-safe for the second plan I jerked down, wrapping my hand around the trigger of the gun.  
The zombie hissed, jerking her bloody face back. She was drenched all the way to her hairline, and made for my head, her arms outstretched to rip back the flesh of my face. I flung my arm back up hard, scraping against Hank's rubbery flesh as I twisted the gun and fired, her head exploding and canvasing my face.  
I tasted blood on my lips, but this was nothing new. Tears ran down my cheeks, but now was not the time to break. I pulled myself out from underneath Hank's body slowly, dragging my jeans back up and wiping the tears from my face. My blood came off too, a blaze of pain at the rough touch.  
I grabbed my shirt, pulling it back on, the collar scraping against the wounds on my face with an agonizing burn  
“Wake up,” I told myself, gruffly. “Pay. Attention. Now is not the time to fuck up.”  
My skin was wet with blood, the cold tearing into me. My entire side was covered in Hank's blood, my clothing red with it. I had to think. I had to save Alex.

 

xxx  
Alex  
Ally's voice didn't sound so confident now, the words clustered together and tight. “I don't know,” she breathed. “I l-left her with Carson and Hank. I think he took her to the woods. That's where he takes them all.” My fingers flexed sharply, the blade pressing against her skin. “Please,” she begged now. “Please, I'm just like her okay? I didn't used to be like this. Please, I don't have a choice, I-.”  
“Shut up,” I snarled now, my voice rocky, vocal chords destroyed by steel-toed boots. “Where's the key to this cell?”  
“I don't have it,” she whispered. “I'll get it, okay, I'll -,” she broke off into a shriek as I slipped the blade down her face into a hard thin line.  
I snapped her body against the bars at the cresting of her scream and she hushed, quivering. “The key,” I repeated.  
“My pocket.” I shifted my left hand into the pocket of her jeans, hooking the key with my fingers. I retracted it, jamming the lock and meeting Ally on the other side.  
Her face was shining, tilted up towards me wide-eyed, pleading. “Please,” she said now. “I'm just trying to survive.”  
“Us too.” I cupped her chin and with a flex of my arm snapped her neck to the side. Her head dropped, her eyes stuck open.  
I removed the pistol from her holster, opening the magazine to count the bullets. There were six left, the tip still hot from its most recent fire.

 

xxx

My face was a wreck, there would be no disguising myself as I slipped from the building. My body throbbed with my every motion, the air feeling thick and heavy. I could feel my broken ribs in my every step and inhale, the strain it took leaving me feeling light headed and sick.  
I had to keep it together. I had to get Eve, and get out of here. I pressed my head against the door, listening.  
I could hear someone speaking, the high-pitched static-ridden call of a Walkie-Talkie. Someone was coughing, then the radio spurted again, a flurry of static. I cracked the door, able to see an unshaven pale man decked out in all black winter gear, talking loudly into a Walkie-Talkie. “What gunshot?” He licked his lips.  
“We didn't get a call. Unauthorized. Second time. Write him up.”  
“Yeah?” The white guy sounded reluctant. “Alright. What's the walker presence?”  
“Check yourself. You're closer.” The pasty guy sighed, his chair scraping the concrete floor as he stood. He muttered to himself as he moved from the building, swinging at something from the ceiling as he moved.  
I pushed open the door, sweeping the gun as I stepped out.  
Eight red torso's stared back at me. They hung from the ceiling on curved meat hooks, swaying from the disturbance of his steps. They were definitely human, and still bleeding with freshness.  
At the back of the room hung a skinny naked man by his feet. His throat bled onto the floor in steady black droplets, his body white with drainage.  
The wave of repulsion was nauseating, a painful surge through my upper body knocking against my broken ribs and scarred stomach. I swallowed it back down, sweating profusely as I moved to the main door of the building.  
There was a tizzy of voices outside, someone was cursing and running in the opposite direction. His gun swung as he loped past obliviously. I stepped after his shadow, moving around one of the large blue tents, inside a shadow was sprawled across a bed, smoking a cigarette.  
I glanced at the woods line, hunkering down as I approached the first trunk and swinging around it, listening. The human voices washed away, a faint buzz of conversation behind me. The shadows in the woods were large and intense, the sinking sun making them eerily skinny.  
I stepped forward, stopped short by the sound of a clicking magazine. I jerked for the source, capturing the assaulting wrist, in my hand, grabbing the gun with the other.  
The figure moved from behind a tree, and for a moment I thought I was clutching a walker with a gun. Then my eyes darted over her good eye, bright and umber. “Eve,” I breathed, reaching for her despite the crush of pain in my chest.  
She felt like a twig against my skin, her body quivering in the cold and slick with blood. “I would've come sooner,” she whispered, her breath a flurry. “But they started looking for me, and I didn't know where you were. I was gonna come-.”  
“I know,” I told her, breathing into her neck, all I could smell was blood. I shifted my fingers over the back of her head, pulling her back to look at.  
“I was coming for you,” she swore. “I wasn't going to let them-.”  
“I know,” I told her again. “It's okay.” I pulled her back in, holding her tighter this time. My ribs throbbed in my chest, as if clenching against the inhale. I knew we couldn't stand there for long, but the risk was worth it in the moment, her body pressed into mine, sinking.  
I pressed my mouth to her forehead, her inhale of pain as sharp as mine at our every gesture. “We need to go,” she said. “They're looking. I killed him, and I think they found him. We need to go..”  
“Yeah, let's go.” I passed her gun back into her hand, moving with her in tandem as we loped around the trunks, aching and bleeding in the open air as we rushed from the compound, narrowly eclipsing death.

 

xxx  
Eve  
“Here. I got it.” I dropped on my knees next to where Alex was laying sprawled out, a pillow tucked beneath his back, keeping him at an angle on the landing floor. I reached for the rag he was haphazardly running against his face, gently tracing the swollen lumps of his face. There were cuts all over his cheeks, like kisses from a razor. Both eyes were swollen and black. He wheezed when he breathed, his chest seizing with the momentum.  
He gave another raspy inhale and I shifted the rag back into his hand, rolling back his shirt.  
His chest and stomach were a nightmare of wounds. His ribs were purplish and dark. I watched the bones flex as he inhaled, afraid to run my fingers even in the air above the abrasion.  
“How bad is it?”  
“I think your ribs are broken.” I shifted my lip between my teeth. “You might have a punctured lung.”  
“Nothing we can do about it,” he wheezed tiredly. “I'll be okay. We're tough.”  
“Yeah,” I echoed. I didn't feel so tough. I was thinking of Fern, wondering where the hell she was, what had happened to her. I was worried about her, I was worried about Alex. What if his injury killed him?  
I'd be alone, I thought selfishly.  
Alex coughed, his face contorting with pain. He groaned, dropping his hand against his face. The sound was awful.  
“You need painkillers,” I muttered now, thinking. “There was a pharmacy-.”  
“No.” Alex's hand shifted from his face, wrapping tightly around my wrist. “You're not going anywhere. Not anywhere.” His voice was heavy and hoarse but sharp. “Not without me. Not with those fucking, animals-.”  
“Okay,” I said quietly, he was working himself up, which was something he didn't need now. “I won't go.”  
“We got lucky.”  
He wasn't wrong. He'd been beaten within an inch of his life, reduced to an item on a menu. I had been scarred, nearly raped and murdered. Fern was gone. And we'd been lucky.  
“Do you think Fern got lucky?”  
I glanced to Alex's drained face. He didn't have the energy to guard his expression, squeezing my wrist gently instead. “I'm sure she's okay.”  
He shifted, meaning to sit up. “What are you doing? You should lay down.” I helped him lean forward anyway, knowing he wasn't going to listen to me. He turned to face me, cupping my chin and lifting the rag to dab at my face. I cringed, the sting of water and his blood painting my slowly closing abrasion.  
“That's going to be one badass scar.”  
“You think so?” I flickered my eyes to his. He was examining the stretch of skin, his eyes darting back to my own. He looked proud of me.  
“Yes.”  
I shifted my hand to his bruised face, his pained inhale drawing the moisture from my lips. His hands were careful, collecting on the only unmarred part of my body, running down my neck and tracing along my collar bone.  
He broke the kiss, brushing his lips to my forehead, his hands collecting at the sore back of my head as he caught his breath. The back of my head ached terribly and I didn't even remember hitting it, just knew I probably had. Almost everything else had been hit.  
“Lay with me,” I told him, the sounds of his labored breathing painful to my ears. I helped him collapse back onto the pillow, curling into him like a puzzle piece. “I won't fall asleep I'll keep watch,” I told him, tracing the hair back from the bruises on his face.  
He sunk his head onto my chest, bookmarking me, his hands lacing around me, the gesture gentle but firm. I was going nowhere.  
Soon, his breathing evened, the soft press of his breath waxing and waning off the skin of my chest. I ran my fingers through his hair, listening to him breathing and the wind blowing.  
I'd promised not to fall asleep, and I didn't, waiting as the dark fell, waiting for the sound of footsteps, gun shots, a purring voice proclaiming “Hey, beautiful.”


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry it has been so long since I have updated, I do have more written. My life has been a bit of a mess lately and I've had some trouble focusing but I'm trying to get over it and get back into writing. Since it took me so long to update I made sure to do several extra pages versus my normal update length :)

xxx  
As the first light shines, I collect. The bag I empty is full of school books, three ring binders and marble notebooks. I stack them neatly, as if they're waiting for their owner to return. Katherine Bower, 6th grader.  
I knocked them off the table, dropped the bag there instead.  
I change into Katherine's plainest shirt, I wash my hair with her vanilla cupcake shampoo, and rinse the blood from my body in their cold bath tub, full of emergency drinking water. I fill the pack with six water bottles, a box of biscuits and several soup cans. I eat the chocolate chips out of stale cookies as I weed through the drawers, looking for anything that can help us stay alive.  
Occasionally, I catch the sight of my rope burned wrists and pause. I return to the organization in a new frenzy.  
I find a steak knife. A pair of nail clippers. A length of steel wool and a hatchet hanging off the shed door. I roll her Disney fleece blanket into the most compressed of sheets, and stuff it at the bottom of the bag. In the cabinet I find Advil, Generic Ibuprofen and Tylenol. I set out two of each for Alex, then pack it.  
While he sleeps, I find us coats. Katherine's Dad is a skinny guy, with small shoulders. I stand in the sleeve and stretch, knowing the last thing Alex needs is compression. I fit into Katherine's mother's green wool sweater with matching gloves, the fingerprints of someone else worn well into the tips.  
Once we're packed to leave, I board up the house. I put glass jars at the doors, tied to a tripping wire. I nail shut the windows and shove the couch in front of the doors. While I work, Alex sleeps. The more noise I make, the deeper he sleeps.  
I kill one walker with a hatchet. It sticks to the skull and slows me down. Three go down with the steak knife. Mostly, they stay away from the house. I am quicker, with my hand healing. My flourish is less awkward with the knife, because it has to be.  
I check on Alex fifty times, in between nails, in between trips to the shed and the acquisition of the hammer and screw driver.  
I find batteries, a flashlight. Alex sleeps.  
I find Katherine's butterfly collection, piled ceiling-high in shoe boxes in her closet. They're plastic, buttons, rocks, sketches and pins. I pin a silver one to her mother's sweater, clipping it in place as I stand in front of the mirror.  
My cut is closed, an angry mash of lines. Ally would be happy, her haphazard C gleaming on my face, straightened by connective tissues.  
At least I have my eyes. My lips. My tongue and my teeth. I don't have any broken bones. I am okay.  
Alex isn't. I make him wake up. I make him eat and swallow the pills. He falls asleep again, in minutes.  
I drank cans of diet soda, wrote messages on the wall in her mother's discreet brown eyeliner.  
Survive and Thrive. Survive.  
Alex slept. Alex slept and slept and the night that became day becomes night again.  
I wondered where Fern was, as I watched the Walker's pace the yard. I wondered where Fern was as I bash their skulls in. I wondered where she was as I put on Katherine's mother's tall pajamas and her mis-matched socks. I wondered where Fern was while I brushed my teeth with dirty bath water, and washed Alex's wounds with bottle-caps of Aquafina.

Alex slept. And I thought about Fern until I couldn't sit still anymore.  
The house is stocked, the house is guarded. Alex is vulnerable, but he has his gun. Fern has a sword she has never used, a sword she once asked if she should emboss with glittery nail polish. I know he'll kill me, but I also have to check if we're still being sought after.  
I loaded up my pack, leaving a note in case he wakes up – Be Back Soon, Don't come looking.  
It doesn't seem like enough, but I don't think anything will. He'll get himself killed if he comes looking. She'll get herself killed if I don't. Lacing my hair back from my face with one of Katherine's barrettes, I examined the battered girl in the mirror. She looked like someone who had already made up her mind.  
I follow her lead.

xxx  
I adjusted my hat, pulling it closer over my ears. My skin stung as the wind blew arcs over my ace. It felt crushing and lonely out there inside the gray cold. And I'm only in the yard.  
It isn't long before I have company. In my hand the pistol felt light, in the other hand the bat swung like a pendulum.  
The walker's chin is falling to pieces, her bottom teeth exposed sitting red and bloody on top of her jaw. Her eyes bulged in her sockets, bloodshot and unblinking. I think maybe she has had all her eyelashes, burned off, or maybe they simply fell away in the cold. Either way the effect is jarring, a corpse masquerading as a human being, the impact of a blunt weapon split across her forehead – ineffective.  
I aimed for the cavity of her head as she swayed forward, shifting each leg independent of the other, chaffing together as she growls for me. It comes down hard, the wound re-opening. A maggot inches from its home, tumbling across her brow and down her face as she pivoted and fell. I brought down the bat again at the back of her head with a smash, her head opening like a pumpkin.  
By the house, I hear a disgruntled call of the dead, the scratch of Walker shoes on the concrete veranda around the shed. A large man with a pot-belly and Church-approved slacks. I turned around to meet the walker with the bat. He struggled forward, blood splatter across his nose and mouth, the hit cracking into the bones of his face.  
He stayed on his feet, swaying. The second blow sent his head into the concrete. I brought the bat up, handle down, crashing it into the temple. His head erupted, the stumbling of another walker winning my attention.  
I didn't want to spend all day decorating the yard, and instead dart into the trees, outpacing her. I kept my ears alert, listening for the a change of inflection showing a different approaching walker. Nothing stumbles from the trees and I moved on, the pistol chilly in my fingers. I could hear another, up ahead, something crunching in her mouth.  
The trees are still naked, dusted with frost, tiered with icicles. I snapped one off a tree, my heart picking up.  
I wondered who she was devouring, expecting to see a red curl underneath the hunched figure. I brought the pick down against the back of her head, interrupting chlorine-green hair, the chewing mouth paused never to gnash again. I kicked her out of the way, her skin soft and prune-y with moisture.   
Beneath the walker is a deer, eyes rolled upward, flies already darting about her exposed innards. I smacked one away from my face, continuing down the trees towards the embankment.  
It's the opposite side of the hovel by the camp, almost directly across from where Hank had pinned me to a boulder, then been slowly eaten by the walker. I hunkered down, squinting into the long grass but I can't see much interrupting the horizon. All I see is that tall building, the one Alex had been held captive in, the one with torsos on chains like pork-roast.  
When he'd told me, my heart had sunk. I hadn't thought it could fall any lower. I could taste his fear in my mouth, his fury. And all he could say was how he was swallowed by thoughts of me, if he could get to me in time. If I'd still be alive.  
A bumbling walker penetrated my vision. She had long drooping curls, wet from the snowbanks. It had come off her head in the back in a large section, perhaps caught in something until she ripped free, leaving a bleeding mass of missing scalp at the back of her head. She stumbled forward towards where the campsite had been, but there was no resounding gun shot.  
I'd have to get closer.  
I stayed low to the grass, moving around the large steep hole. It had the illusion of a muddied lake, full of melted snow and dirt turned to mud. As I moved back to where I had left the walker dead, my heart picked up.  
Hank wasn't there any longer. I didn't know if he had been moved, or turned and stumbled away. I felt sick, considering the fact I hadn't destroyed his brain. He could be walking around out there, tripping, his jeans still around his ankles.  
I twisted the band of the ring Alex had given me, being brave. If I found Hank, I would finish him off, but it was unlikely I would see him again.  
He wasn't my concern now. I pushed aside the long grass, approaching the campground where Alex and I had almost lost our lives and each other.  
There was no sound but the buzzing of flies in the grass, like ink blots across my vision. Our apocalypse had been their baby boom, and they rested on the reeds as far as I could see, with no tents or humans to block their way.  
Under my foot, I felt something hard and uneven. I looked down to see a disengaged arm, a flopped over walker in the grass, her head spilling blood into the tall grass. She'd been thrown just far enough for Hank to pull free from under her.  
I stepped around her, moving towards where the tents had been. The only signs of the cannibal's left was smoothness in the grass, like bald patches in the field.

xxx  
I looked for Fern in the woods, near where Alex had waited by the car. The car, was of course, long gone as were all of our things. I missed my sword and my crossbow, for a moment, but it was fleeting. Mostly, I was consumed with nervousness about being away from Alex. I was afraid he would wake up and come looking for me when he could barely stand.  
I traced the air where we had parked, looking for a particle in the air that remembered our adventure, but this space was empty. I wondered if I could shift through all the dimensions if I could touch us before this had happened, warn us not to stop.  
It was a bitterly abstract thought, and I pushed it away. I was lost in my head, not paying attention.  
I lifted the bat at the sound of a growl behind me, but nothing emerged. I listened to the soft scraping as the unseen walker disappeared, unaware of the closeness of fresh meat.

xxx  
Alex was still asleep when I came back, he hadn't moved from his position on his back at all. The day after I came back, and three days after our dance with death, Alex wakes up.

He seemed to be able to breathe again, though even shifting into a sitting position whitened his face, his jaw clicking at the sharp intensity of the pain. “I need to move around,” he said, even when I tried to convince him he should lay back down. “Walkers don't care about sick time.” He laced his hand around my neck and I did what I could to help him stay balanced, which wasn't much if he elected to fall.  
We moved from Katherine's small pinkish bedroom to the landing outside her room, leaving our wares on the end table turned hospital cart. Alex gripped me for support I'm terrible at giving, his added weight sending me veering into the wall. “Here,” he muttered, shifting his weight onto his foot. “I'm alright, I can walk. Just feels like I'm going to explode.”  
“You ever break a rib before?” I asked him, as he unlaced his arm from my shoulders, standing as if he never has before.  
“Not this many,” he said, and it broke my heart. Of course he had. I shouldn't be surprised and I'm really not, I just hurt for him. He is well beyond the point of needing my sympathy, moving for the rail of the landing to grip for support. I'm afraid he will fall forward somehow but he seems to be steadying, his face glinting with the exertion to move. “We should get out of here. If they come looking for us..,” he trailed off.   
I licked my lips, forcing myself to be brave. One of my strongest urges was to keep him calm, but the last thing I wanted to do was move Alex. “They're not here anymore.”  
Alex shifted to look at me and understand what I've said. Instead of answering, I offered him the vile from my pocket. The CVS label on the painkillers speaks for me.  
Alex's face was less than awed. I haven't seen him this angry in so long, it could be refreshing. “What is wrong with you?” He left my hand dangling. I let it drop, playing my fingers across the ridges of the cap. “I told you not to leave. I told you what could happen to you!”  
“I know. But nothing happened.” I flicked my eyes back to his. “It was a necessary risk.”  
“Bullshit, you could have waited. We were fine here until I healed up!”   
“You can't even yell without losing all the blood in your face. I needed to make sure we were safe. I had to see if I could find Fern. I had to do something, about this. Just, here.” I held out the pill bottle. He jerked it out of my hand, hefting the capsule at the wall.  
It bounced off, the pills rattling on the inside. “You're going to hurt yourself to spite me?”  
“What you did was stupid.” The simplest of gestures has brought even more pain to Alex's face. Or maybe it's me, and he's just too tired to hide it. I shake off his concerns.  
“No, it was logical. I was thinking logically, like you taught me.” I bent to retrieve the pills, twisting off the safety cap.  
“I told you to stay here.”  
“You were thinking, with your heart. And I'm sorry. But I had to make sure we were okay. Please.” I shifted the pills into my hand, closing my fingers over them. “Be mad at me. Fine. Don't be stupid.” I opened my palm.  
“Was almost getting killed not enough for you?”  
His eyes see right through me, I can feel his outrage on my core. I understand it too, the underbelly of a double standard. “You would have done it for me in a heartbeat.”  
Alex took the pills from my fingers, not looking from my face as he does. He must be in pain, because he takes them, though I'm well aware he isn't happy about it. He looked back over the rail, not talking to me. It's going to be a loud silence, and I didn't think I could stomach it after everything.  
But I don't know what to say. Cutting through Alex's anger has always been impossible without intimacy, and he isn't going to be able to take that from me now. Instead I move next to him, looking over the lower floor with him. “You mean a lot to me.”  
He shifted to look at me, his tongue irritably probing his cheek. “Not enough for you to listen to me.”  
“Don't sulk.”  
“They could have been there. They would have tortured you, and killed you. Killed you fast if you were lucky, but probably not.” His fingers gripped onto the rail even while he stared at me, as if I can explain any of this in a way that would defuse him.  
“I know that.” He shook his head, looking back to the rail. I can feel the pressure of the wall between us. “Don't okay. Just don't.”  
“Just back off Eve.”  
“No!” My voice is louder than I mean for it to be. “Don't. Don't do this to me, not after everything. Not after, you, and thinking that they're going to, and Fern and she's gone and fucking Hank and the walker and the kids-.” I'm dissolving, that steadfast Be Brave contracting and shattering like glass. And Alex, with his fury and his broken ribs is gripping my shoulders, pressing his mouth to my forehead his voice soft and level as the sobs hitch in my chest, and I don't know what I mean but all I can hear myself saying is “Look at what she did to my face,”, though I'm not sure words are comprehensible to anything but me, an angry scream in the neck of a sob. And that face burned in Alex's chest as he held me, and I cry like it's the end of the world.

xxx  
Alex  
Eve had done just enough to get me to open up, and now she wasn't talking. Not at all.  
We sat in the small bedroom of the house, while she feigned eating. She'd been doing okay, and now that she had spilled it seemed like she was putting up the very wall she was so afraid of. “Eve, you're not even chewing.” She'd been running a cracker near her lips, staring somewhat distantly at the floor between her legs.   
She took a small bite, breaking off an edge. It was hard to move, my ribs feeling squeezed and tight. The painkiller had taken the sharpest edge off, but I still felt like I'd been stuffed into a space too small for me. It was with every effort I lifted myself from the bed, dropping to a spot on the floor next to her. “What's going on?”  
She shrugged.  
Her face was red, the bridge of her nose almost comically inflamed. In contrast the abrasion on her face was healing quickly, a sharp red line encircling half her face. I cupped her chin under the jaw, twisting her to look at me, since she was looking anywhere but.  
She closed her eyes, tilting her head away but I kept her head cupped, cycling hair away from her face. “You've always been pretty. Since I saw you standing there, looking like an idiot with a gun. I recognized it even then, and I thought you were going to get yourself into so much trouble without me. There was something about you, that went beyond what I was just looking at. I don't know. I guess I felt like I had to take care of you.”  
My thumb traced the scar, she winced. “You don't need me to take care of you anymore. You're not just pretty, anymore. You're fierce now. Bold.”  
I brushed my nose against hers, her breath was warm, and soft. “I'm not fierce,” she contested. “I'm not anything like that. I worry all the time, I feel so much. I'm not tough like you.”  
“No,” I agreed. “You're tough, like you.” I brushed my lips across her cheekbone, stirring against the abrasion. She stirred back against the bed but I kept her face cupped, still as I draped my mouth over hers.  
It was too hard to breathe for it to be much of a kiss. Still, even at the light touch of our lips there was heat like a rising sun. I caught her bottom lip in my mouth, pulling gently. The escape of her air was soft, unregulated. I wanted her, even with my ribs broken in my chest, my body and face wildly black and blue.  
I dropped my mouth to her neck, running my tongue over her pulse. Her fingers touched on the back of my head, gently. “You're in pain,” she muttered, as I nipped at her neck, drawing my head back to hers. “You need to lay back down. Heal. Then we'll look for Fern.”  
I relented. She was talking. The stunned pain of her eyes had subsided somewhat, leaving her looking tormented but unsurprised. Torment was expected, here. “Lay with me,” I tell her. I'm not asking.  
She slipped onto the bed with me, cringing softly as she settled besides me. I notice the slight of pain in her face as the touch of her own ribs, reaching for her shirt to examine the network of bruising on her abdomen. Her ribs are cut from the boulder, and it hurts worse than my own broken ribs to look at. “It's fine,” she said, like she can hear my thoughts racing through my head. “He's dead. It ate him alive, half-naked. That's a decent way for a bad guy to go.”  
Her head dropped on the pillow besides my own. I let her shirt drop back down, resting my hand against her hip, drawing on her skin. She is considering something, I can see it flickering in her eyes.“Can I ask something?”  
“Sure.” I'm glad she's talking, opening, no longer tracing the path of the blade on her face.  
“It's personal.”  
“Okay.” I waited, while she worked over the way she wanted to say it. She ends up spitting it out, point-blank.  
“What did it feel like, when you killed Parker?”  
I wasn't expecting the question. I had expected it had something to do with the night at the compound. Not Parker though, and I was somewhat thrown off. I paused, a half circle left unfinished on her ribs. “It didn't feel like anything,” I said, finally. “I don't know. I thought it would be satisfying. But it wasn't. It wasn't...unsatisfying. It made me feel a kind of nothing.”  
She nodded, accepting my answer. “It felt, really good to kill Hank. Like I was alive.”  
“You are alive,” I told her. She looked uncertain about her confession. “It should feel good.”  
“It wasn't quick,” she said. “It wasn't slow either but it wasn't like a gun shot. And I know, I didn't end it. But that was because I had to stop. And, it was personal. And it felt great. Awful, and amazing. What does that mean, about me? That I enjoyed killing him?”  
“It means, that he tried to rape you, and you killed him.” Her eyes examined my face, like she was unsure still. I didn't know the embellishment my explanation needed. “I don't know how else I can say it.”  
“I know he deserved to die. And I wanted to kill him. I just didn't think, it would make me feel so...,” she trailed off.  
“Alive.”  
“Yeah.” She bit her lip.  
“Eve. If I had been there, I would have cut his eyes from his face. It says more about me, than it says about you.”  
“Yeah. But I might have, if I had the time,” she shifted. I continued the pattern on her ribs, listening to the hitch in her breathing as my hands played over her skin, her shirt rising.  
“Don't start doubting yourself. It's the end. It's bloody. Be bloody.” My hands shifted over her chest, her skin burned in my hands. I ignored the stab of pain in my ribs, dropping my head to her chest, her ribs rising and falling abruptly as I ran my tongue over her skin, like I could take back the wounds.

xxx  
Alex slept inches from my face, while I waited for the volley of fireworks to taper off so I could sleep. I still felt hot and strange, the incessant pull between my legs of some waking instinct.  
Alex had done a decent job of distracting me, I had to credit him for that.  
I wasn't nearly over it, not by a long shot. But it existed in me for reflection, as tangible as everything else that had happened. The beginning was already losing intensity, the crude sounds of the walkers lapping up the blood of my charges, wedged between narrowly escaping my mother's supposed drunken rage, warring for space with the newest memories. They were all bright like flashbulbs on my mind, I could almost taste the air when I thought of my bad memories, which wasn't fair.  
In contrast, the good were harder to cling to. I knew I'd had friends in the world before. I had first heard about the potential Rabies, one hit cure, in college, surrounded by gabbing girls and the scraping sound of forks on plates. It had seemed so general, we'd moved on to talking about our courses, or a new bar, or – something. I couldn't really remember.  
That was the unfairness. I couldn't remember my closest friend Tess' face, her features blurred and abnormal in reflection. Even my awful mother wasn't so awful to constitute remembering, it seemed. I couldn't remember the color of her eyes, I couldn't remember her hair color the last time I had seen her.  
Would I forget Alex too?  
I looked to his face now, as if to commit it in its terrible state. It was the only way it seemed I could remember things. He was black and blue, and swollen. But he was still beautiful. Too beautiful to constitute remembering.

xxx  
By the time Alex could walk down the stairs on his own, a full eleven days had passed since our kidnapping. He was still in pain when he moved too abruptly, but his breathing didn't stick, the pain a fleeting irritable shift in his mannerisms.   
I was getting too used to the house, by then, which was problematic because it was mostly out of resources. There were a couple cans of food for the packs, but we'd gone through most of the food supply and almost all of the water. It was time to stock up. It was time to figure out what had become of Fern, and deal with the actuality of her death if we couldn't find her.  
I didn't see how she could have lasted out there, a day on her own. Imagining eleven of them was impossible, and painful.  
I missed her. She had a way of talking that made it easy to forget the world outside, for a stretch. Alex made sure that I never forgot the world outside. They were very different and Fern had always had a more even temper, outside of being knocked out of range by Alex, or some random event. She calmed down when she had to, it was Alex's method of attack.  
She'd been my friend. And now there was a space in her absence, a weird hollow quiet between the lull in Alex and I's conversation, a check system of the supplies we did have.  
I tried not to think about her, even as we left the house to look for her.

xxx  
We moved from the residence on foot, we didn't have much of an alternative choice. The street was barren of cars, besides one that had been introduced nose first to a telephone pole. There was a singular bicycle planted in the lawn, sitting for so long that the grass around it seemed to be swallowing it. It was strange to see so many signs of time passing since things had been civilized. The days seemed to go by so quickly and yet they never seemed to collect. It seemed like an eternity since the end of the world, and at the same time not enough time for things to change so drastically.  
It was hinging on six months, maybe five and a half depending on where you counted from. Did you start with the first bite, or the government quarantine's falling? It was hard to say exactly. People had started getting bitten before the first patient was re-released. No one knew exactly where things had gone wrong.  
“Are you with me?” Alex looked irritated, and I couldn't blame him. We were sequestered between two houses, eying a fourth for entry. We were waiting to see where the mass of walkers would dissipate to, heading into whatever house was furthest away from the bulk of them. And I was spacing out.  
“Sorry,” I muttered. Alex's jaw shifted.   
“I was under the impression you wanted to find Fern today, not die.”  
“I don't know what gave you that idea.” I shifted my eyes from the walkers to Alex. His eyes were angry. “They haven't even moved.”  
“You need to take this seriously. Just because you've gotten better does not mean you can't be knocked flat on your ass.”  
“Thanks for the vote of confidence,” I said, folding my arms and forcing myself to hone in.  
“And I was talking, about creating a diversion. You know, making a plan? Not daydreaming.”  
“You sound like you're feeling better,” I refuted.  
“Focus,” he lashed. He shook his hand, which was holding a large broken piece of brick that had come off the neighboring house. “If I get closer to them I can toss it into the woods. They should head after.”  
“You can barely lift your arm above your head,” I reminded him. “Give me.” I held out my hand.  
“You might walk right into them with your head in the clouds.”  
“My head isn't in the clouds. I am here. With you. And the stupid brick. Now give it.” I folded my arms, trying to straighten myself out. Fidgeting wasn't going to help my case. Alex passed over the brick begrudgingly, leveling his pistol in the event I did somehow walk directly into the conglomerate of walkers.  
I wouldn't call it a pack, rather a cluster of the bleeding and punctured. One walker was pacing out the length of the house, one clawing at the grass, perhaps in pursuit of a small mammal. The closest one stood slack-jawed and staring in our general direction. It made me uneasy but he didn't seem to see us.  
“We doing this any time soon? Or are you dreaming again?”  
“I'm looking out. Don't rush me.”  
Alex quieted, stilling besides me. I waited until I felt calm again to dart forward, ducking beneath an assembly of garbage cans. The walkers were feet from me now, their groans large and echoing. But there was no way I could trust that I'd get the brick anywhere far away enough from here. I had to get closer. I glanced back to Alex, still in the channel between the houses. He had his gun raised, waiting. I looked back to the walkers. One was still looking in the direction of the house, but the rest were in the perfect position.  
The one looking at me was close, within three feet. The man had a large exposed hole on his cheek, bordered by burnt skin. It looked like someone had taken a blow torch to his face, and somehow failed to destroy his brain. I reached into my belt loop, the hammer hanging with the heavy side brushing against my hip. I was well aware Alex was shaking his head, trying to deter me. I popped up anyway, striding forward. The walker gave a raspy call of alert, it seemed to come from his chest, oddly smoky considering his appearance. I brought the hammer across his face, shattering the cheekbone and orbital socket. He was knocked sideways to the ground and before he could recover I brought it down on his head.  
I retrieved the brick from behind the cans, not looking to Alex who was not happy about the change in plans. I darted into the yard of the house, ducking past the mailbox and behind the hedge. The sound of groaning and growling was like a dying conversation, raspy cries coming from the throat of the closest, smallest one. I brought back my arm, aiming for the trunk of the tree and hefted hard.  
The brick skirted along the road instead, hitting with a soft barely audible clink.  
I looked to the walkers who betrayed nothing, turning to Alex who was looking a bit like he wanted to fire the gun at me. I looked back at the area around me, trying to think. I was not well hidden as I hadn't planned on staying behind the hedge long, and I risked detection if even one of them moved two steps nearer to me.  
I moved from the hedge back behind the garbage cans, snapping off the top of one of the old metal pails. Nearly five months of rotting food assaulted my senses and I gagged, stepping away from the powerful odor to lob the garbage top loudly.  
It hit with a hard loud clang in the middle of the tree. The walkers turned, their low pitched moaning carrying as they tread to the trees.  
Alex darted behind the cans with me, where we waited as the last of them skirted near the tree-line. His hand caught my upper arm, I couldn't tell if he was guiding or demanding as we moved to the house.  
He knelt to pick the lock, the door opening with a hollow creak. He leveled the gun, I clung to my hammer. I expected an ambush of some sort but we cleared through the living room and kitchen easily. Alex grabbed me before we could ascend the stairs, scowling. “That was awful. Do you know the amount of times that plan could have failed?”  
“And what would you have done?” I twitched at the indignation, he would have come up with a new plan and enacted it immediately, just as I had.  
“Not fucked up the throw.”  
I rolled my eyes. “You're being sexist. I can't do it, but you can?”  
“It's not sexism. I am faster and bigger than you.”  
“You're not faster right now,” I pointed out, transcending the stairs before he could continue our argument. I pushed open the first door, keeping my hand on the knob in case there was an unheard conglomerate of walkers.  
There were shapes on the bed, but they didn't stir. I pushed in the door to the full picture. Five months of a rotting family lay on the bed, blankets pulled up to the two smallest figures chins. The gun had fallen off the bed, laying on the floor.  
The world around them didn't stir them. The reality of the situation hit me like a bag of bricks. I could see it, Mom, Dad and two kids on the bed. Their hands shaking, the kids crying. Who had he shot first? Had Mom watched her kids die? Had the kids watched Dad die? One would have had to watch the other one go out, unless they did it at the same time.  
It was a horrifying implication. A horrifying actuality.  
I pulled the door shut, standing with my hand on the knob.  
Was Fern like that? Rotting, quietly alone? Had she died in pain, eaten alive, screaming?  
“Upstairs is clear,” Alex said, and I jumped a foot. My hand was still on the knob, my face probably ashy.  
“There's a gun in there,” I said, feeling numb.  
“Infant?”  
“Family.” I stepped back as he creaked the door open, returning with the gun and an impassive expression. “How can you just do that?” I looked to him, somewhat of a clip in my tone.  
“Got to.” He shrugged.  
“Will you shrug if we fine Fern dead?” The question came out before I'd really thought about it. Alex didn't honor it with an answer, simply walking past me, the magazine clicking as he checked for ammo.  
It was a messed up thing to say, and I felt badly pretty quickly. We had spent a lot of time sequestered in the pharmacy with Fern, and while she annoyed Alex, he'd gotten quite used to her. Used to someone seemed to be the most Alex got to most things, and that was only after a lot of work.  
I found him in the bedroom closet, scoping the top shelf for weapons, having already checked for a safe. “I'm sorry, that was insensitive. I'm just on edge. I keep waiting to turn around and see Walker Fern. And I didn't know her that well, and I guess that's the thing. I should've gotten to know her better. It isn't an excuse.”  
“Stop rambling. Go scout the kitchen.”  
Alex never said please. He never so much as asked. I wasn't in the mood to war with him and turned around to do it anyway. I was on the stairs when I heard the creaking of the back-door opening and froze.  
My brain ran. Was it a walker or a person? Should I tell Alex or confront them?  
I licked my lips and moved down the stairs, drawing my pistol. The kitchen was a small space and they'd come in through the backdoor. The archway was small, and I'd have to curve around the stairs and be in open-view to confront them. Instead I cut across the stairs, standing in the alcove of a living room, waiting.  
There were footsteps, one pair heavy, the other light. It was definitely two people and I could hear them sweeping the house with relative uncertainty – looters.  
There was a soft creak on the stairs and I spun. Alex held a finger to his lips.  
I looked to see if they were in sight of the alcove. Their footsteps sounded near my right ear and I waved Alex over. He stepped into the hallway, moving behind them.  
I moved to their front as Alex moved to their back.  
The woman screamed with shock . The man jumped at the exploding sound of her vocal chords, though he was just as astonished to see me.  
He didn't look like a bandit or a criminal. He was stocky with a red cotton shirt and round rimmed glasses. There was dirt smeared on his cheeks like war paint. The woman was older, she had hair that was fluffy like a rabbits, and big stunned brown eyes. They were both somewhere in their thirties, I imagined she was a bit older than him.  
Alex stepped forward, pressing his pistol to the back of the man's head. “Drop your weapons,” he demanded, while I held my gun on the woman. She dropped her knife on the floor with shaking hands, it fell with a hard clatter.  
“Okay,” said the man, putting his gun carefully down on the floor. The woman looked horrified. “Look, we don't have much, but we'll be happy to give you whatever we do have. And you can have the house.”  
“Already have the house,” said Alex. I stepped forward to retrieve their weapons, pocketing the gun and holding the knife. I kept my gun on them, even though they were now unarmed.  
“We have food,” said the man. “You look hungry.” He was talking to me, unable to see Alex. “You can have the food.”  
“I don't want your food.”  
“Look,” the man licked his lips. “I need my gun. I have people and they're depending on me, and if I don't have it, I don't know how I'm going to get back to them.”  
“What people?” I asked. The woman looked like she wanted to throw up.  
There was a soft crack behind me and I spun, glancing to the window. “Eve, check the porch for others.”  
“There's no one with us,” said the woman, her voice just above a whisper.  
“Eve?” questioned the man as I made to step towards the door. “The Eve? And are you The Alex?”  
I stopped mid-turn. I didn't know what the man meant, but he definitely hadn't blindly guessed at Alex's name.  
A soft moan from the porch placed the shadow as a walker. He was less threatening then Alex who had stiffened at the man's words. “How do you know my name?”  
“Well, Fern, of course,” the man explained, he was smiling now despite the fact we both had guns on him. “It seems we have a friend in common.”  
“Fern?” I dropped the nose of my gun, ignoring Alex's hiss. “Fern's alive?”  
“Fern's great,” the man was still grinning. “I'm sorry, I'm Otto. This is Paula.” He offered out his hand, as if Alex still didn't have a gun trained on the back of his head.  
“It could be a trap,” Alex said.  
“Then how did he know her name? The people at the compound didn't even know she existed.” I stepped forward to shake Otto's hand. His smile took over his entire face. Alex slowly lowered his weapon. “Sorry about Alex. He's careful.”  
“From what Fern said, I'm lucky you two didn't shoot me on sight. She's going to be over the moon.” He turned, flickering to look at Alex. Paula still hadn't moved, looking scared. “From what she told me happened.. I thought she was exaggerating...” His smile was almost sympathetic. I realized he was looking at my new scar, and had caught a glimpse of Alex's bruised face.  
“What did she see?”  
“She can tell you herself.” Otto was still so cheery, in the middle of a kitchen, unarmed, in the middle of the apocalypse. For a moment I forgot all that, even about the dead family I had stumbled upon upstairs.   
“Oh sorry,” I handed him back his gun and Paula's knife.  
“Eve!” Alex stepped forward as if meaning to intercept. “What the hell is wrong with you?”  
“Alex, he knows Fern's name,” I muttered back. Otto was standing there awkwardly with his gun, he passed Paula the knife but she didn't seem to want to take it.  
“And if it's a trap? This is the van all over again.”  
“It's not the same.”  
“No, you're right, it's stupider-.”  
“Just shut up, Alex,” I snapped back now. “Fern's alive. We're not dead. It's okay to breathe.”

xxx  
Alex wasn't happy. Paula wasn't talking. It was okay though, because Otto had enough cheer and conversation for the both of them.  
We sat in the living room as Otto filled us in.  
He told us they had holed up in a pet store, and been there since early on after the outbreak. He figured it would be perfect, with stores of entirely edible canned food, animals to breed for food and a place often overlooked at the end of the world. He had taken it over two weeks after the end, the store mostly empty besides a Biter tangled in netting. Paula had been working in the nearby plaza and he had stumbled into her on his first supply run.  
They'd lost a few animals, more than he had thought. A lot of the animals had starved to death in the two weeks following the end, the ones that were left had eaten the others.  
But they were well fed now, had gotten over being feral for the most part. They liked being handled and the survivors were glad to have something to cuddle. Almost all the larger animals had died of dehydration, but one scrap of a white lab puppy had survived, and Fern was absolutely in love with him. I got the feeling Fern reminded Otto of someone he had lost, he raved about her like a daughter, it wasn't a huge leap to assume.  
Including themselves, there were six other survivors. They were all good people and had become somewhat of a family.  
Otto could talk forever, and very well might have but Paula interrupted to speak her first words of the evening. “It's getting dark.”  
“Right,” Otto said. Alex was looking at him. His suspicions had waned into an angry boredom, but he wouldn't look at me and still had his pistol secured in his hand. “We should get going then. I'm sure you'd like to see Fern. I can't wait to see her face.”

xxx  
The pet shop was a large, carpeted emporium. The name on the side read Mendezzo's, a chain I had never heard of before. At the front of the store were aisles and aisles of pet supplies. Bird feed, cages, house breaking pads, dog sweaters, leashes, and collars. I even caught an extensive tubing network for a high-tech aquarium, clocking in at several thousand dollars.  
Towards the back of the store were the registers, then a large door leading to storage and an office. Stairs behind the counter led to a lounge room, and one more office.  
But the most amazing thing about Mendezzo's was the electricity. Otto had hooked up a generator, and the store was lit up on the inside. It was a strange, beautiful thing to see fluorescent lights again.  
When we first got there, everyone was in the lounge room having dinner. “We used to have a constant guard,” Otto explained when Alex was hesitant to leave the main doors. “But this area hasn't had a person coming through in ages, and the high window's keep us safe from the Biters.”  
Alex looked uneasy but followed Otto as he led us up the main stairs, looking excited.  
I felt nervous, scared even. I couldn't explain why but I was plagued by a terrible feeling of doubt. I couldn't believe Fern was here until I saw her.  
Then I saw her. She was smiling, her legs curled under her on a couch. In her arms was a soft white Labrador, snoozing idly.  
At the creaking of the door, everyone looked up. Conversation stopped as the newcomers took us in.  
Then I was nearly knocked against the wall as Fern threw her arms around my neck, crying. I wrapped my hands around her back, squeezing her tightly. “I-thought-I'd-never-see-you-again,” she said in a breath, pulling back her face to look at me again.  
“I thought you were dead,” I told her, affixing her hair behind her ear. “You look great.” My vision was all blurry, I realized with some disdain I was crying.  
“Your face,” she whispered, eyes tracing the newest feature. “Alex,” she said looking to him and his bruised features. He looked taken aback when she hugged him, stiffly patting her back. She withdrew and grabbed both my hands in hers. “I knew if anyone could get out it'd be you two. I said it. I did.”  
“She did,” echoed Otto. “This is Eve and Alex,” Otto explained to the group. “We'll do a better introduction in a bit..,” he trailed off. Fern was pulling me out of the room, Alex following. She spoke a mile a minute as she pulled me around the store. Eventually she led us to the quiet office in the back of the storage room, so we could talk, stuffing the puppy into my arms as she began.  
It was warm and soft like a baby. I instantly wanted to give it back, struck by a terrible wave of responsibility and revulsion.  
I passed it to Alex as quickly as I politely could. He didn't look too happy about the dog either, and I wondered when I had become so much like him.  
Fern didn't notice, she was telling me everything, tears running down her face. In between explanations about all the cool stuff she'd learned to do, and how great Otto is, I got a tearful apology. “I just didn't know what to do,” she whispered, from her seat on the desk. Alex was leaning on the wall, having successfully passed the puppy back to her. I also stood, arms folded over myself, as if by sitting I was making us vulnerable. “I saw them, cutting your face. I heard you screaming, and Alex screaming and I just didn't know what to do. So I hid in the grass. I'm so sorry, I really am.”  
“Don't be sorry,” I told her. “Be alive.”  
“You did the right thing,” Alex agreed, his voice smooth. “We are not your responsibility.”  
Fern scanned our faces for signs of deceit, wiping at her own tears.  
“What happened, after you hid?”  
“I had this.” She reached down to touch the hilt of her sword. “And I didn't even know how to use it. I was too scared to. One of the walkers got so close to me and I was shaking so hard, I thought it would hear me shaking. I just hid in the grass, and the mud was so cold on my stomach. I waited, and waited, and it went away. I got up and walked to the road but the car was gone. I don't know what I expected. You guys to be sitting in it, waiting? I don't know. It was a bad idea because it made me feel so alone, and like, open. So I went into the first place I saw, it was an old toll booth a few minutes from where we were. I wanted to get away from where it all happened, where they had been with you. It was really cold, and full of windows. And I just sat under the counter, shivering and so cold and scared. And I was thinking about, what could be happening, and trying to think of what you guys would want me to do. I didn't know. I didn't know at all.” She trembled, as if remembering it had made her relive the cold.  
“I felt like I was freezing to death. Then I heard a walker and it sounded close and I just panicked and ran. I don't think it even saw me before that but I just could imagine it getting closer and closer and blocking that tiny door and then I'd be stuck. And I ran and it was following me its feet scraping and I was crying and screaming and then there was a gunshot.” She sniffed hard in recollection. “And I collapsed on the ground crying and Otto and Paula ran out. And Otto said 'You're just a kid, what are you doing out here by yourself?' and I just kept crying and crying. He was trying so hard to get me to calm down, and Paula held me, and told me I'm safe now.” Fern's nose was as red as the area around her eyes, she looked so small. It was awful to imagine her fear and isolation, things I had considered with a far darker ending while we were searching for her. She swallowed back the pain to continue. “I guess I stopped crying. At some point.” She shrugged, wiping under her nose. “Then my head hurt so bad. And I was scared of Otto and Paula, because I knew I shouldn't just trust people. And after what I saw...but they let me keep my knife. And Otto gave me the coat off his back, and let me wear his watch. I knew I wasn't supposed to just trust them but I didn't know what else to do. So, I came back with them here. Then I told them, what happened to you. They said they couldn't do anything about it. It was too dark, too dangerous. They'd take care of me for you guys. They thought you were dead, even though I told them again and again that you guys were survivors. And, I told them about Westerrose and how you saved me. But they didn't get it. They thought I was just feeling guilty, but I was telling them you had to be okay. I'm sure they've heard it all before.” She shrugged, snuggling the puppy to her chest. He was licking her hand, over and over again, she rubbed his head half-aware. “Here I am, blabbing. You guys look like you've been through Hell. What...What happened?”  
“We survived,” said Alex, stemming any embellishment. I wasn't planning on confessing the entire thing to Fern anyway. She suddenly seemed too young to hear any of it.  
“And you're okay?” She looked between the two of us, as if expecting a confession of a bite, a heart murmur, a time bomb on either of us.  
“We're okay,” I told her and she smiled.

xxx  
Fern brought us back into the room to meet the others. I asked for a minute to talk to Alex before she did. She didn't question it, gathering her puppy and telling us she would be in the lounge.  
“What do you think?” I twisted to look at him.  
“It's a dangerous situation.” He was still folded up against the wall, keeping his distance. He wasn't happy with my actions in this scenario, and had followed along, but I knew that he thought we'd gone into this blind and stupid. I didn't get how it was dangerous now.  
“And you mean?”  
“It's a big illusion of safety. She seems happy, she feels safe. She has a puppy, a father figure and a group letting her to be a regular kid. That's dangerous, it will get her killed,” he said, not moving from his place against the wall. “And it's probably not just her.”  
“I don't know. They all survived this long.”  
“Maybe they got lucky. They're not my concern. And neither, really, is Fern.” He looked at me, unwavering but impassively stoic as always.  
“So, what are you saying? That's I'm going to become deluded from a few seconds out of the cold?” Alex didn't answer and I swiped my tongue over my teeth, angry. “Alex, do you see this, enormous scar on my face?” I ran my finger against my cheek, cementing my point in case he had somehow missed it. “I won't ever forget, for a hint of a second, that I'm not safe.”  
His tongue probed his cheek, but he nodded. “Good.”  
“Okay,” I said. He didn't seem to need further convincing, nor did he seem to feel bad. It was simply the way it was, and we were to be aware of it.

xxx  
Otto introduced us to the group as a whole, a second time. Apparently, they had heard a bit about us from Fern, though what exactly they knew I wasn't sure. Almost every eye wavered over my scar, I think they all knew how she had last seen us. I could see them trying not to look at it.  
They used our appearance to excuse Alex's behavior. Or maybe they'd just been warned by Fern. They didn't seem to mind how standoffish Alex was, or how little I had to say.  
Paula offered me a forced smile. I knew she didn't trust me.  
I was right about my initial impression of Paula being over thirty, she was thirty eight. Otto was thirty seven.  
London was twenty nine. She kept to herself, sending suspicious scans over the two of us. She didn't try to hide that she was looking over our battle scars. She also appeared to be the only other person not enamored with Fern, sending irritated looks her way when Fern took to chattering too much. She stood off to the side, folding her arms, her nostrils flared with distaste.  
Violet and Niko were holding hands, and both very sweet. Violet told me she thought I had lovely eyes, and she seemed to mean it. She stared very intently into my face, and nodded whenever someone spoke to show she was listening. Niko seemed to take most of his cues from Violet, smiling and flitting between us and her. They looked like they weren't much older than us, and at the same time appeared dramatically younger.  
Alex watched this all pan out, with barely anything to add to the conversations. He seemed to stand out, as something vastly different from the tame illusion of the room.  
But so did I. And I wasn't used to that. I wasn't sure if it was just because the cutting mark on my face, or what I had been through. There was a definite difference between us and them, and I wasn't so sure that it would go away.

xxx  
The first conflict was the first day. Otto asked London to bunk up with Paula and Fern, so we could have her room. She lost her mind, and I couldn't quite blame her. Not at first. I stood there awkwardly as she snapped at Otto about how absolutely ridiculous that was. “You want me to give up my room, for a couple of outsiders so they can have some privacy? Are you forgetting they held a gun to your head?”  
“We don't need privacy,” I said, before things could escalate further. Otto was apologetic but Violet offered to share half the upstairs office with us. It didn't offer us much time to talk, or any privacy, but I imagined it did the same for them. They stayed up in the lounge, talking after we went to our room.  
xxx  
Alex was warring with himself. He was pissed at me, but the change in dynamic made us both uneasy and we needed to talk. I waited for him to break as I unfolded a large dog-bed, which was similar to a mattress with absolutely no support.  
Alex didn't say anything though, as I laid the blanket over the bone pattern of the bed, frowning. I ended up relenting first, a gloss of his hardened but exhausted face being enough to push me into a speaking role. “I know, that it feels, weird.”  
“Weird does not begin to cover it,” he replied icily, leaning against the wall his arms folded. “We don't know any of these people.”  
“They kept Fern alive.”  
“I could keep Fern alive. It wouldn't mean I could be trusted. And even if that was enough, to cover all of it, you didn't know she was alive for certain. You handed Otto the gun when all he had was your name. He could have gotten the information off of her and killed her. He could have shot the both of us.”  
“Then what was I supposed to do? I get it, okay? I get that I jumped. But it's jump then or jump never. What would you do? Turn them around? Never find out where Fern was?”  
“I didn't get even a minute to consider what to do before you were taking it all in your own hands.”  
I felt bad, immediately. Justified and yet extremely wrong and confused. The decisions were so rapid fire, and so numerous with wrong turns that it was impossible to get through alive. If you were still breathing at the end you were wounded, and scraped to shit.  
“What do you want to do?” I lifted myself from the dog bed, hooking my thumbs through the loops of my pants.  
“You've already made all our decisions.” Alex didn't sway, his eyes on mine. He didn't have to call me names anymore to get me tangled up in my own thoughts. It was almost worse now, how deeply a few words cut.  
“We could leave,” I said. “Let Fern make her choice, and go.”  
“And if she stayed?”  
“Then you and me,” I said. “If that's what you think, we should do.”  
“We're already here.” Alex unfolded, deferring to his pack. He unzipped it and began calculating, counting things, too busy to be bothered with me. I dropped to a seat on the bed which smelled faintly of plastic, and cut right into the floor.  
I missed Katherine's house, laying in the bed with Alex's head resting inches from mine.  
I'd forgotten to give Fern the pin still tacked to my chest. I undid it, holding it over my face and looking at the small silver butterfly. It was a moment so fleeting, all of it, over.  
I swallowed back the well of emotion, wondering when I had started getting so emotionally charged all over again. There had been a shift, at the compound, and now it felt like there was no stopper on any of it since I brought that rock down on Hank's head.  
And right now, it was sad. But I could feel it under my skin, clenching like a fist, a building white rage.


End file.
